WILLIAM' 

AND  ANNE 
HABBERLEY 


IN  MEMORY  OF 
WILLIAM  C.  HABBERLEY 


I 


IN  THE  TRACK  OF  THE  BOOK- 
WORM 0\  by  Irving  Browne :  thoughts, 
fancies  and  gentle  gibes  on  Collecting  and 
Collectors^  by  one  of  them,  ^g 


DONE   INTO   A   BOOK  AT   THE   ROYCROFT 

PRINTING  SHOP  AT  EAST  AURORA, 

NEW  YORK,  U.  S.  A. 

MDCCCXCVII 


Copyrighted  by 

The  Roycroft  Printing  Shop 

1897 


Of  this  edition  but  five  hundred  and  ninety  copies 
were  printed  and  types  then  distributed.  Each  copy 
is  signed  and  numbered  and  this  book  is  number  /  J  9 


CHAPTERS. 

* 

1.  Objects  of  Collection  g 

2.  Who  Have  Collected  n 

3.  Diverse  Tastes  18 

4.  The  Size  of  Books  21 

5.  Binding  25 

6.  Paper  32 

7.  Women  as  Collectors  36 

8.  The  Illustrator  47 

9.  Book-Plates  66 

10.  The  Book-Auctioneer  73 

11.  The  Book-Seller  77 

12.  The  Public  Librarian  84 

13.  Does  Book  Collecting  Pay  88 

14.  The  Book- Worm's  Faults  93 

15.  Poverty  as  a  Means  of  Enjoyment  103 

16.  The  Arrangement  of  Books  105 

17.  Enemies  of  Books  108 

18.  Library  Companions  121 

19.  The  Friendship  of  Books  133 


BALLADS. 

1.  How  a  Bibliomaniac  Binds  his  Books  26 

2.  The  Bibliomaniac's  Assignment  of  Binders      28 

3.  The  Failing  Books  33 

4.  Suiting  Paper  to  Subject  34 

5.  The  Sentimental  Chambermaid  37 

6.  A  Woman's  Idea  of  a  Library  42 

7.  The  Shy  Portraits  54 

8.  The  Snatchers  71 

9.  The  Stolid  Auctioneer  75 

10.  The  Prophetic  Book  80 

11.  The  Book-Seller  82 

12.  The  Public  Librarian  85 

13.  The  Book- Worm  does  not  care  for  Nature      97 

14.  How  I  go  A-Fishing  99 

15.  The  Book-Thief  in 

16.  The  Smoke  Traveler  112 

17.  The  Fire  in  the  Library  116 

18.  Cleaning  the  Library  117 

19.  Ode  to  Omar  119 

20.  My  Dog  121 

21.  My  Clocks  123 

22.  A  Portrait  125 

23.  My  Schoolmate  126 

24.  My  Shingle  129 

25.  Solitaire  130 

26.  My  Friends  the  Books  133 


|O  BOOK- WORMS  all,  of  high  or  low  degree, 
Whate'er  of  madness  be  their  stages, 

And  just  as  well  unknown  as  known  to  me, 
I  dedicate  these  trifling  pages, 

In  hope  that  when  they  turn  them  o'er 

They  will  not  find  the  Track  a  bore. 


X          » 


•-. 


v       . 


The  Track  of  the  Book- Worm. 


i. 

OBJECTS  OF  COLLECTION. 

HILOSOPHERS  have  made  vari- 
ous and  ingenious  but  incomplete 
attempts  to  form  a  succinct  defini- 
tion of  the  animal,  Man.  At  first 
thought  it  might  seem  that  a  per- 
fect definition  would  be,  an  animal 
who  makes  collections.  But  one  must  remember  that 
the  magpie  does  this.  Yet  this  definition  is  as  good 
as  any,  and  comes  nearer  exactness  than  most  '*%£& 
What  has  not  the  animal  Man  collected?  Clocks, 
watches,  snuff-boxes,  canes,  fans,  laces,  precious 
stones,  china,  coins,  paper  money,  spoons,  prints, 
paintings,  tulips,  orchids,  hens,  horses,  match-boxes, 
postal  stamps,  miniatures,  violins, 
show-bills,  play-bills,  swords,  but- 
tons, shoes,  china  slippers,  spools, 
birds,  butterflies,  beetles,  saddles, 
skulls,  wigs,  lanterns,  book-plates, 
knockers,  crystal  balls,  shells,  penny 
toys,  death-masks,  tea-pots,  auto- 


graphs,  rugs,  armour,  pipes,  arrow  heads,  locks  of 
hair  and  key  locks,  and  hats   (Jules  Verne's  "  Tale 
T3?orm     °^  a  Hat"),  these  are  some   of  the  most  prominent 
subjects  in  search  of  which  the  animal  Man  runs  up 
and  down  the  earth,  and   spends  time  and  money 
without  scruple  or  stint  t£i  But  all  these  curious  ob- 
jects of  search  fall  into  insignificance  when  compared 
with  the  ancient,  noble  and  useful  passion  for  col- 
lecting books.  One  of  the  wisest  of  the  human 
race  said,  the  only  earthly  immortality 
is  in  writing  a  book  ;  and  the  desire  to 
accumulate  these  evidences  of 
earthly  immortality   needs 
no  defense  among  cul- 
tivated men. 


zo 


II. 

WHO  HAVE  COLLECTED  BOOKS. 

|HE  mania  for  book-collecting 
is  by  no  means  a  modern  dis- 
|ease,but  has  existed  ever  since 
there  were  books  to  gather, 
and  has  infected  many  of  the 
wisest  and  most  potent  names 
in  history.  Euripides  is  ridi- 
culed by  Aristophanes  in  "The 
I  Frogs  "  for  collecting  books. 
Of  the  Roman  emperor,  Gordian,  who  flourished  (or 
rather  did  not  flourish,  because  he  was  slain  after  a 
reign  of  thirty-six  days)  in  the  third  century,  Gib- 
bon says,  "  twenty-two  acknowledged  concubines 
and  a  library  of  sixty  thousand  volumes  attested  the 
variety  of  his  inclinations."  This  combination  of  ux- 
orious and  literary  tastes  seems  to  have  existed  in 
another  monarch  of  a  later  period — Henry  VIII. — 
the  seeming  disproportion  of  whose  expenditure  of 
10,800  pounds  for  jewels  in  three  years,  during  which 
he  spent  but  100  pounds  for  books  and  binding,  is  ex- 
plained by  the  fact  that  he  was  indebted  for  the  con- 
tents of  his  libraries  to  the  plunder  of  monasteries. 
Henry  printed  a  few  copies  of  his  book  against  Luther 
on  vellum  **%&&  Cicero,  who  possessed  a  superb  li- 
brary, especially  rich  in  Greek,  at  his  villa  in  Tuscu- 
lum,  thus  describes  his  favorite  acquisitions  :  "  Books 
to  quicken  the  intelligence  of  youth,  delight  age,  dec- 

xx 


orate  prosperity,  shelter  and  solace  us  in  adversity, 
bring  enjoyment  at  home,  befriend  us  out-of-doors, 
pass  the  night  with  us,  travel  with  us,  go  into  the 
country  with  us." 

jETRARCH,  who  collected  books  not  sim- 
'ply  for  his  own  gratification,  but  aspired 
to  become  the  founder  of  a  permanent  li- 
brary at  Venice,  gave  his  books  to  the 
Church  of  St.  Mark ;  but  the  greater  part  of  them 
perished  through  neglect,  and  only  a  small  part  re- 
mains. Boccaccio,  anticipating  an  early  death,  offered 
his  library  to  Petrarch,  his  dear  friend,  on  his  own 
terms,  to  insure  its  preservation,  and  the  poet  prom- 
ised to  care  for  the  collection  in  case  he  survived 
Boccaccio;  but  the  latter,  outliving  Petrarch,  be- 
queathed his  books  to  the  Augustinians  of  Florence, 
and  some  of  them  are  still  shown  to  visitors  in  the 
Laurentinian  Library.  From  Boccaccio's  own  ac- 
count of  his  collection,  one  must  believe  his  books 
quite  inappropriate  for  a  monastic  library,  and  the 
good  monks  probably  instituted  an  auto  da  fe  for 
most  of  them,  like  that  which  befell  the  knightly  ro- 
mances in  "  Don  Quixote."  Perhaps  the  naughty 
story-teller  intended  the  donation  as  a  covert  satire. 
The  walls  of  the  room  which  formerly  contained 
Montaigne's  books,  and  is  at  this  day  exhibited  to 
pilgrims,  are  covered  with  inscriptions  burnt  in  with 
branding-irons  on  the  beams  and  rafters  by  the  ec- 
centric and  delightful  essayist  *$&.  The  author  of 
"  Ivanhoe "  adorned  his  magnificent  library  with 
la 


suits  of  superb  armor,  and  luxuriated  in  demonology 
and  witchcraft.  The  caustic  Swift  was  in  the  habit 
of  annotating  his  books,  and  writing  on  the  fly-leaves 
a  summary  opinion  of  the  author's  merits  ;  whatever 
else  he  had,  he  owned  no  Shakespeare,  nor  can  any 
reference  to  him  be  found  in  the  nineteen  volumes  of 
Swift's  works.  Military  men  seem  always  to  have  had 
a  passion  for  books.  To  say  nothing  of  the  literary 
and  rhetorical  tastes  of  Caesar,  "the  foremost  man 
of  all  time,"  Frederick  the  Great  had  libraries  at  Sans 
Souci,  Potsdam,  and  Berlin,  in  which  he  arranged 
the  volumes  by  classes  without  regard  to  size.  Thick 
volumes  he  rebound  in  sections  for  more  convenient 
use,  and  his  favorite  French  authors  he  sometimes 
caused  to  be  reprinted  in  compact  editions  to  his 
taste.  The  great  Conde  inherited  a  valuable  library 
from  his  father,  and  enlarged  and  loved  it.  Marlbor- 
ough  had  twenty-five  books  on  vellum,  all  earlier 
than  1496.  The  hard-fighting  Junot  had  a  vellum  li- 
brary which  sold  in  London  for  1,400  pounds,  while 
his  great  master  was  not  too  busy  in  conquering 
Europe  not  only  to  solace  himself  in  his  permanent 
libraries,  and  in  books  which  he  carried  with  him  in 
his  expeditions,  but  to  project  and  actually  commence 
the  printing  of  a  camp  library  of  duodecimo  volumes, 
without  margins,  and  in  thin  covers,  to  embrace 
some  three  thousand  volumes,  and  which  he  had  de- 
signed to  complete  in  six  years  by  employing  one 
hundred  and  twenty  compositors  and  twenty-five 
editors,  at  an  outlay  of  about  163,000  pounds  s&  St. 

13 


Helena  destroyed  this  scheme.  It  is  curious  to  note 
that  NaP°leon  despised  Voltaire  as  heartily  as  Fred- 
erick  admired  him,  but  gave  Fielding  and  Le  Sage 
places  among  his  traveling  companions ;  while  the 
Bibliomaniac  appears  in  his  direction  to  his  librarian  : 
11  I  will  have  fine  editions  and  handsome  bindings. 
I  am  rich  enough  for  that."  «$>  The  main  thing  that 
shakes  one's  confidence  in  the  correctness  of  his  lit- 
erary taste  is  that  he  was  fond  of  "  Ossian."  Julius 
Caesar  also  formed  a  traveling  library  of  forty-four 
little  volumes,  contained  in  an  oak  case  measuring 
16  by  ii  by  3  inches,  covered  with  leather.  The  books 
are  bound  in  white  vellum,  and  consist  of  history, 
philosophy,  theology,  and  poetry,  in  Greek  and  Latin. 
The  collector  was  Sir  Julius  Caesar,  of  England,  and 
this  exquisite  and  unique  collection  is  in  the  British 
Museum.  The  books  were  all  printed  between  1591 
and  1616  MWT 

HJTHEY    brought    together    fourteen 

(thousand    volumes,   the    most  valuable 
:ollection  which  had  up  to  that  time  been 

[acquired  by  any  man  whose  means  and 
estate  lay,  as  he  once  said  of  himself,  in  his  inkstand. 
Time  fails  me  to  speak  of  Erasmus,  De  Thou,  Grotius, 
Goethe,  Bodley;  Hans  Sloane,  whose  private  library 
of  fifty  thousand  volumes  was  the  beginning  of  that 
of  the  British  Museum  ;  the  Cardinal  Borromeo,  who 
founded  the  Ambrosian  Library  at  Milan  with  his 
own  forty  thousand  volumes,  and  the  other  great 
names  entitled  to  the  description  of  Bibliomaniac. 


We  must  not  forget  Sir  Richard  Whittington,  of  fe- 
line  fame,  who  gave  400  pounds  to  found  the  library 
of  Christ's  Hospital,  London  (&, 

The  fair  sex,  good  and  bad,  have  been  lovers  of  books 
or  founders  of  libraries ;  witness  the  distinguished 
names  of  Lady  Jane  Gray,  Catherine  De  Medicis, 
and  Diane  de  Poictiers. 

ONLY  remains  to  speak  of  the  great  opium- 
eater,  who  was  a  sort  of  literary  ghoul,  famed 
for  borrowing  books  and  never  returning  them, 
and  whose  library  was  thus  made  up  of  the 
enforced  contributions  of  friends  —  for  who 
would  have  dared  refuse  the  loan  of  a  book  to 
Thomas  de  Quincey  ?  The  name  of  the  unhappy  man 
would  have  descended  to  us  with  that  of  the  incen- 
diary of  the  Temple  of  Diana  at  Ephesus.  But  the 
great  Thomas  was  recklessly  careless  and  slovenly 
in  his  use  of  books;  and  Burton,  in  the  "  Book-hun- 
ter," tells  us  that  "  he  once  gave  in  copy  written  on 
the  edges  of  a  tall  octavo  '  Somnium  Scipionis,' 
and  as  he  did  not  obliterate  the  original  matter,  the 
printer  was  rather  puzzled,  and  made  a  funny  jum- 
ble between  the  letter-press  Latin  and  the  manu- 
script English."  «$>  I  seriously  fear  that  with  him 
must  be  ranked  the  gentle  Elia,  who  said :  "  A  book 
reads  the  better  which  is  our  own,  and  has  been  so 
long  known  to  us  that  we  know  the  topography  of 
its  blots  and  dog's  ears,  and  can  trace  the  dirt  in  it 
to  having  read  it  at  tea  with  buttered  muffins,  or  over 
a  pipe,  which  I  think  is  the  maximum."  And  yet  a 

15 


- 


great  degree  of  slovenliness  may  be  excused  in  Charles 
because,  according  to  Leigh  Hunt,  he  once  gave  a 
kiss  to  an  old  folio  Chapman's  "  Homer,"  and  when 
asked  how  he  knew  his  books  one  from  the  other, 
for  hardly  any  were  lettered,  he  answered :  "  How 
does  a  shepherd  know  his  sheep?"  «^ 
The  love  of  books  displayed  by  the  sensual  Henry 
and  the  pugnacious  Junot  is  not  more  remarkable 
than  that  of  the  epicurean  and  sumptuous  Lucullus, 
to  whom  Pompey,  when  sick,  having  been  directed 
by  his  physician  to  eat  a  thrush  for  dinner,  and  learn- 
ing from  his  servants  that  in  summer-time  thrushes 
were  not  to  be  found  anywhere  but  in  Lucullus'  fat- 
tening coops,  refused  to  be  indebted  for  his  meal, 
observing  :  "  So  if  Lucullus  had  not  been  an  epicure, 
Pompey  had  not  lived."  Of  him  the  veracious  Plu- 
tarch says  :  "  His  furnishing  a  library,  however,  de- 
served praise  and  record,  for  he  collected  very  many 
and  choice  manuscripts ;  and  the  use  they  were  put 
to  was  even  more  magnificent  than  the  purchase,  the 
library  being  always  open,  and  the  walks  and  read- 
ing rooms  about  it  free  to  all  Greeks,  whose  delight 
it  was  to  leave  their  other  occupations  and  hasten 
thither  as  to  the  habitation  of  the  Muses." 

'T  IS  not  recorded  that  Socrates  collected 
books — his  wife  probably  objected— but  we 
have  his  word  for  it  that  he  loved  them.  He 
did  not  love  the  country,  and  the  only  thing 
that  could  tempt  him  thither  was  a  book.  Acknowl- 
edging this  to  Phaedrus  he  says : 
16 


"Very  true,  my  good  friend;  and  I  hope  that  you     ^,- 
will  excuse  me  when  you  hear  the  reason,  which  is, 
that  I  am  a  lover  of  knowledge,  and  the  men  who 
dwell  in  the  city  are  my  teachers,  and  not  the  trees 
or  the  country.  Though  I  do  indeed  believe  that  you 
have  found  a  spell  with  which  to  draw  me  out  of  the 
city  into  the  country,  like  a  hungry  cow  before  whom 
a  bough  or  a  bunch  of  fruit  is  waved.  For  only 
hold  up  before  me  in  like  manner  a  book,  and 
you  may  lead  me  all  round  Attica,  and 
over  the  wide  world.  And  now  hav- 
ing arrived,  I  intend  to  lie  down, 
and  do  you  choose  any  pos- 
ture in  which  you  can 
read  best." 


III. 
DIVERSE  TASTES. 

T  IS  fortunate  for  the  harmony  of  book-col- 
lectors that  they  do  not  all  desire  the  same 
thing,  just  as  it  was  fortunate  for  their  young 
State  that  all  the  Romans  did  not  want  the 
same  Sabine  woman.  Otherwise  the  Helenic 
battle  of  the  books  would  be  fiercer  than  it  is. 
Thus  there  are  bibliomaniacs  who  reprint  rare  books 
from  their  own  libraries  in  limited  numbers ;  au- 
thors, like  Walpole,  who  print  their  own  works,  and 
whose  fame  as  printers  is  better  deserved  than  their 
reputation  as  writers ;  like  Thackeray,  who  design 
the  illustrations  for  their  own  romances,  or,  like 
Astor,  who  procure  a  single  copy  of  their  novel  to  be 
illustrated  at  lavish  expense  by  artists ;  amateurs 
who  bind  their  own  books  ;  lunatics  who  yearn  for 
books  wholly  engraved,  or  printed  only  on  one  side 
of  the  leaf,  or  Greek  books  wholly  in  capitals,  or 
others  in  the  italic  letter ;  or  black-letter  fanciers ;  or 
tall  copy  men  ;  or  rubricists,  missal  men,  or  first  edi- 
tion men,  or  incunabulists  "^V 

One  seeks  only  ancient  books  ;  another  limited  edi- 
tions; another  those  privately  printed;  a  fourth 
wants  nothing  but  presentation  copies  ;  yet  another 
only  those  that  have  belonged  to  famous  men,  and 
still  another  illustrated  or  illuminated  books.  There 
is  a  perfectly  rabid  and  incurable  class,  of  whom  the 
most  harmless  are  devoted  to  pamphlets ;  another, 
18 


rather  more  dangerous,  to  incorrect  or  suppressed 
editions  ;  and  a  third,  stark  mad,  to  play-bills  and 
portraits.  One  patronizes  the  drama,  one  poetry,  one 
the  fine  arts,  another  books  about  books  and  their 
collectors ;  and  a  very  recherche  class  devote  them- 
selves to  works  on  playing-cards,  angling,  magic,  or 
chess,  emblems,  dances  of  death,  or  the  jest  books 
and  facetiae  i£  Finally,  there  are  those  unhappy  be- 
ings who  run  up  and  down  for  duplicates,  searching 
for  every  edition  of  their  favorite  authors.  In  very 
recent  days  there  has  arisen  a  large  class  who  de- 
mand the  first  editions  of  popular  novelists  like  Dick- 
ens, Thackeray  and  Hawthorne,  and  will  pay  large 
prices  for  these  issues  which  have  no  value  except 
that  of  rarity.  I  can  quite  understand  the  enthusiasm 
of  the  collector  over  the  beautiful  first  editions  of  the 
Greek  and  Latin  classics,  or  for  the  first  "  Paradise 
Lost,"  or  even  for  the  ugly  first  folio  "  Shakespeare," 
and  why  he  should  prefer  the  comparatively  rude  first 
Walton's  Angler  to  Pickering's  edi- 
tion, the  handsomest  of  this  century, 
with  its  monumental  title  page.  But 
why  a  first  edition  of  a  popular  novel 
should  be  more  desirable  than  a  late 
one,  which  is  usually  the  more  ele- 
gant, I  confess  I  cannot  understand. 
It  is  one  of  those  things  which,  like, 
the  mystery  of  religion,  we  must 
take  on  trust.  So  when  a  bookseller 
tells  me  that  a  copy  of  the  first  issue 


Worm 


of  "The  Scarlet  Letter"  has  sold  for  seventy-five 
dollars,  and  that  a  copy  of  the  second,  with  the  same 
date»  but   put  out  six  months  later,  is  worth  only 
seventy-five  cents,  I  open  my  eyes  but  not  my  purse, 
especially  when  I  consider  that  the  second  is  great- 
ly superior  to  the  first  on  account  of  its  famous  pre- 
face of  apology,  and  when  I  read  of  some  one's 
bidding  $1875  for  a   copy  of  Poe's  worth- 
less "  Tamerlane,"  I  am  flattered  by  the 
reflection  that  there  is  one  man  in 
the  world  whom  I  believe  to 
be  eighteen  hundred  and 
seventy-five    times 
as  great  a  fool 
as  I  am ! 


- 


20 


IV. 

THE  SIZE  OF  BOOKS. 

ERE  I  a  despotic  ruler  of  the 
universe  I  would  make  it  a  se- 
Tious  offense  to  publish  a  book 
larger  than  royal  octavo.  Books 
should  be  made  to  read,  or  at  all 
events  to  look  at,  and  in  this 
dew  comfort  and  ease  should 
be  consulted.  Any  one  who  has 
ever  undertaken  to  read  a  huge  quarto  or  folio  will 
sympathize  with  this  view.  The  older  and  lazier  the 
Book- Worm  grows  the  more  he  longs  for  little  books, 
which  he  can  hold  in  one  hand  without  getting  a 
cramp,  or  at  least  support  with  arms  in  an  elbow 
chair  without  fatigue.  Darwin  remorselessly  split  big 
books  in  two.  Mr.  Slater  says  in  "  Book  Collecting: " 
"When  the  library  at  Sion  College  took  fire  the  at- 
tendants, at  the  risk  of  their  lives,  rescued  a  pile  of 
books  from  the  flames,  and  it  is  said  that  the  libra- 
rian wept  when  he  found  that  the  porters  had  taken 
it  for  granted  that  the  value  of  a  book  was  in  exact 
proportion  to  its  size."  Few  of  us,  I  suspect,  ever 
read  our  family  Bible,  and  all  of  us  probably  groan 
when  we  lift  out  the  unabridged  dictionary.  The  "Cen- 
tury Dictionary  "  is  a  luxury  because  it  is  published  in 
small  and  convenient  parts.  I  cannot  conceive  any 
good  in  a  big  book  except  that  the  ladies  may  use  it 
to  press  flowers  or  mosses  in,  or  the  nurses  may  put 

21 


it  in  a  chair  to  sit  the  baby  on  at  table.  I  have  heard 
°^  a  gentleman  who  inherited  a  mass  of  folio  volumes 
and  arranged  them  as  shelves  for  his  smaller  treas- 
ures,  and  of  another  who  arranged  his  i2-mos  on  a 
stand  made  up  of  the  seventeen  volumes  of  Pinker- 
ton's  "  Voyages  "  and  Denon's  "Egypt  "  for  shelves. 
What  reader  would  not  prefer  a  dainty  little  Elzevir 
to  the  huge  folio, Caesar's  "Commentaries,"  even  with 
the  big  bull  in  it,  and  the  wicker  idol  full  of  burning 
human  victims  ?  What  can  be  more  pleasing  than 
the  modern  Quantin  edition  of  the  classics  ?  Or,  to 
speak  of  a  popular  book,  take  the  "  Pastels  in  Prose," 
the  most  exquisite  book  for  the  price  ever  known  in 
the  history  of  printing  J§-  The  small  book  ought  how- 
ever to  be  easily  legible.  The  health  and  comfort  of 
the  human  eye  should  be  consulted  in  the  size  of  the 
type.  Nothing  can  be  worse  in  this  regard  than  the 
Pickering  diamond  classics,  if  meant  to  be  read ;  and 
it  seems  that  there  are  too  many  of  them  to  be  in- 
tended as  mere  curiosities  of  printing.  Let  us  approve 
the  exit  of  the  folio  and  the  quarto,  and  applaud  the 
modern  tendency  toward  little  and  handy  volumes. 
Large  paper  however  is  a  worthy  distinction  when 
the  subject  is  worth  the  distinction  and  the  edition  is 
not  too  large.  Nothing  raises  the  gorge  of  the  true 
Book- Worm  more  than  to  see  an  issue  on  large  paper 
of  a  row  of  histories,  for  example  ;  and  the  very  worst 
instance  conceivable  was  a  large  paper  Webster's 
"  Unabridged  Dictionary  "  issued  some  years  ago.  The 
book  thus  distinguished  ought  to  be  a  classic,  or  pe- 
22 


culiar  for  elegance,  never  a  series,  or  stereotyped,  the 
first  struck  off,  and  the  issue  ought  not  to  be  more 
than  from  fifty  to  one  hundred  copies ;  any  larger  is- 
sue  is  not  worth  the  extra  margin  bestowed,  and  no 
experienced  buyer  will  tolerate  it  *3^  But  if  all  these 
conditions  are  observed,  the  large  paper  copies 
bear  the  same  relation  to  the  small  that  a  proof 
before  letters  of  a  print  holds  to  the  other  impres- 
sions. Large  margins  are  very  pleasant  in  a  library  as 
well  as  in  Wall  Street,  and  much  more  apt  to  be  per- 
manent. There  are  some  favorite  books  of  which  the 
possessor  longs  in  vain  for  a  large  copy,  as  for  in- 
stance, the  Pickering  "Walton  and  Cotton." 

GREAT  deal  of  fun  is  made  of  the  Book- 
Worm  because  of  his  desire  for  large  pa- 
per and  of  his  insistence  on  uncut  edges, 
but  his  reasons  are  sound  and  his  taste  is 


unimpeachable.  The  tricks  of  the  book-trade  to  catch 
the  inexperienced  with  the  bait  of  large  paper  are 
very  amusing.  "  Strictly  limited"  to  so  many  copies 
for  England  and  so  many  for  America,  say  a  thousand 
in  all,  or  else  the  number  is  not  stated,  and  always 
described  as  an  edition  de  luxe,  and  its  looks  are 
always  very  repulsive.  But  the  bait  is  eagerly 
bitten  at  by  a  shoal  of  beings  anxious  to  get  one  of 
these  rarities — a  class  to  one  of  whom  I  once  found 
it  necessary  to  explain  that  "  uncut  edges  "  does  not 
mean  leaves  not  cut  open,  and  that  he  would  not  in- 
jure the  value  of  his  book  by  being  able  to  read  it, 
and  was  not  bound  to  peep  in  surreptitiously  like  a 

23 


maid-servant  at  a  door  "  on  the  jar."  I  once  knew  a 
OBoo8x  satirical  Book- Worm  who  issued  a  pamphlet,  "  one 
^  hundred  copies  on  large  paper,  none  on  small."  There 

is  no  just  distinction  in  an  ugly  large-paper  issue,  and 
sometimes  it  is  not  nearly  so  beautiful  as  the  small, 
especially  when  the  latter  has  uncut  edges.  The  in- 
dependence of  the  collector  who  prefers  the  small  in 
such  circumstances  is  to  be  commended  and  imitated. 
Too  great  inequality  in  uncut  edges  is  also  to 
be  shunned  as  an  ugliness.  It  seems  that 
some  French  books  are  printed  on  pa- 
per of  two  different  sizes,  the  effect 
of  which  is  very  grotesque,  and 
the  device  is    a  catering 
to  a  very  crude  and 
extravagant 
taste. 


V. 
BINDING. 

•  HE  binding  of  books  for  sev-  Worm 
eral  centuries  has  held  the 
dignity  of  a  fine  art,  quite  in- 
dependent of  printing.  This 
has  been  demonstrated  by  ex- 
hibitions in  this  country  and 
abroad.  But  every  collector 
ought  to  observe  fitness  in  the 
Jbinding  which  he  procures  to 
be  executed.  True  fitness  prevails  in  most  old  and 
fine  bindings;  seldom  was  a  costly  garb  bestowed  on  a 
book  unworthy  of  it.  But  in  many  a  luxurious  libra- 
ry we  see  a  modern  binding  fit  for  a  unique  or  rare 
book  given  to  one  that  is  comparatively  worthless  or 
common.  Not  to  speak  of  bindings  that  are  real  works 
of  art,  many  collectors  go  astray  in  dressing  lumber 
in  purple  and  fine  linen — putting  full  levant  morocco 
on  blockhead  histories  and  such  stuff  that  perishes 
in  the  not  using.  It  is  a  sad  spectacle  to  behold  a 
unique  binding  wasted  on  a  book  of  no  more  value 
than  a  backgammon  board.  There  are  of  course  not 
a  great  many  of  us  who  can  afford  unique  bindings, 
but  those  who  cannot  should  at  least  observe  pro- 
priety and  fitness  in  this  regard,  and  draw  the  line 
severely  between  full  dress  and  demi-toilette,  and 
keep  a  sharp  eye  to  appropriateness  of  color.  I  have 
known  several  men  "who  bound  their  books  all  alike. 

25 


Nothing  could  be  worse  except  one  who  should  bind 
$$oo&  particular  subjects  in  special  styles,  pace  Mr.  Ell- 
wanger,  who,  in  "The  Story  of  My  House,"  advises 
the  Book-Worm  to  "  bind  the  poets  in  yellow  or  or- 
ange, books  on  nature  in  olive,  the  philosophers  in 
blue,  the  French  classics  in  red,"  etc.  I  am  curious 
to  know  what  color  this  pleasant  writer  would  adopt 
for  the  binding  of  his  books  by  military  men,  such 
for  example  as  "  Major  Walpole's  Anecdotes."  (p. 

MBROSE  FERMIN  DIDOT  #  recom- 
mended binding  the  "Iliad"  in  red  and  the 
"Odyssey"  in  blue,  for  the  Greek  rhapso- 
dists  wore  a  scarlet  cloak  when  they  re- 
cited the  former  and  a  blue  one  when  they  recited  the 
latter.  The  churchmen  he  would  clothe  in  violet,  car- 
dinals in  scarlet,  philosophers  in  black  **£& 
I  have  imagined 

HOW  A  BIBLIOMANIAC  BINDS  HIS  BOOKS. 

|'d  like  my  favorite  books  to  bind 

So  that  their  outward  dress 
To  every  bibliomaniac's  mind 
Their  contents  should  express. 

Napoleon's  life  should  glare  in  red, 
John  Calvin's  gloom  in  blue ; 

Thus  they  would  typify  bloodshed 
And  sour  religion's  hue. 

The  prize-ring  record  of  the  past 
26 


Must  be  in  blue  and  black; 
While  any  color  that  is  fast 
Would  do  for  Derby  track. 

The  Popes  in  scarlet  well  may  go ; 

In  jealous  green,  Othello; 
In  gray,  Old  Age  of  Cicero, 

And  London  Cries  in  yellow. 

My  Walton  should  his  gentle  art 

In  Salmon  best  express, 
And  Penn  and  Fox  the  friendly  heart 

In  quiet  drab  confess. 

Statistics  of  the  lumber  trade 

Should  be  embraced  in  boards, 
While  muslin  for  the  inspired  Maid 

A  fitting  garb  affords. 

Intestine  wars  I'd  clothe  in  vellum, 

While  pig-skin  Bacon  grasps, 
And  flat  romances,  such  as  "  Pelham," 

Should  stand  in  calf  with  clasps. 

Blind-tooled  should  be  blank  verse  and  rhyme 

Of  Homer  and  of  Milton  ; 
But  Newgate  Calendar  of  Crime 

I'd  lavishly  dab  gilt  on. 

The  edges  of  a  sculptor's  life 

May  fitly  marbled  be, 
But  sprinkle  not,  for  fear  of  strife, 

A  Baptist  history. 

27 


Crimea's  warlike  facts  and  dates 

Of  fragrant  Russia  smell ; 
The  subjugated  Barbary  States 

In  crushed  Morocco  dwell. 

But  oh  !  that  one  I  hold  so  dear 

Should  be  arrayed  so  cheap 
Gives  me  a  qualm ;  I  sadly  fear 

My  Lamb  must  be  half-sheep. 

No  doubt  a  Book-Worm  so  far  gone  as  this  could  in- 
vent stricter  analogies  and  make  even  the  binder  fit 
the  book  ^^ 
So  we  should  have 

THE  BIBLIOMANIAC'S  ASSIGNMENT  OF  BINDERS. 
|f  I  could  bring  the  dead  to  day, 

I  would  your  soul  with  wonder  fill 
By  pointing  out  a  novel  way 
For  bibliopegistic  skill. 

My  Walton,  Trautz  should  take  in  hand, 
Or  else  I'd  give  him  o'er  to  Hering; 

Matthews  should  make  the  Gospels  stand 
A  solemn  warning  to  the  erring. 

The  history  of  the  Inquisition, 

With  all  its  diabolic  train 
Of  cruelty  and  superstition, 

Should  fitly  be  arrayed  by  Payne. 

A  book  of  dreams  by  Bedford  clad, 

A  Papal  history  by  De  Rome, 
28 


Should  make  the  sense  of  fitness  glad 
In  every  bibliomaniac's  home. 

As  our  first  mother's  folly  cost 

Her  sex  so  dear,  and  makes  men  grieve, 

So  Milton's  plaint  of  Eden  lost 
Would  be  appropriate  to  Eve. 

Hayday  would  make  "  One  Summer"  be 

Doubly  attractive  to  the  view ; 
While  General  Wolfe's  biography 

Should  be  the  work  of  Pasdeloup. 

For  lives  of  dwarfs,  like  Thomas  Thumb, 
Petit's  the  man  by  nature  made, 

And  when  Munchasen  strikes  us  dumb 
It  is  by  means  of  Gascon  aid. 

Thus  would  I  the  great  binders  blend 
In  harmony  with  work  before  'em, 

And  so  Riviere  I  would  commend 
To  Turner's  "  Liber  Fluviorum." 

After  all,  whether  one  can  afford  a  three-hundred  or 
a  three-dollar  binding,  the  gentle  Elia  has  said  the 
last  word  about  fitness  of  bindings  when  he  observed  : 
"  To  be  strong-backed  and  neat-bound  is  the  desider- 
atum of  a  volume ;  magnificence  comes  after.  This, 
•when  it  can  be  afforded,  is  not  to  be  lavished  on  all 
kinds  of  books  indiscriminately  JJ 
"  Where  we  know  that  a  book  is  at  once  both  good 
and  rare — where  the  individual  is  almost  the  species, 

29 


*  We  know  not  where  is  that  Prometian  torch 
$008;  That  can  its  light  relumine  ; ' 

«  Such  a  book  for  instance  as  the  '  Life  of  the  Duke  of 
Newcastle'  by  his  Duchess — no  casket  is  rich  enough, 
no  casing  sufficiently  durable,  to  honor  and  keep  safe 
such  a  jewel  *<&) 

"  To  view  a  well  arranged  assortment  of  block-head- 
ed encyclopaedias  (Anglicanaor  Metropolitanas),  set 
out  in  an  array  of  Russia  and  Morocco,  when  a  tithe 
of  that  good  leather  would  comfortably  reclothe  my 
shivering  folios,  would  renovate  Parcelsus  himself, 
and  enable  old  Raymond  Lully  to  look  like  himself 
again  in  the  world.  I  never  see  these  impostors  but 
I  long  to  strip  them  and  warm  my  ragged  veterans 
in  their  spoils." 

IHERE  spoke  the  true  Book- Worm.  What 
a  pity  he  could  not  have  sold  a  part  of  his 
|good  sense  and  fine  taste  to  some  of  the 

iffluent  collectors  of  this  period  ! 

Doubtless  an  experienced  binder  could  give  some 
amusing  examples  of  mistakes  in  indorsing  books 
with  their  names.  One  remains  in  my  memory.  A 
French  binder,  entrusted  with  a  French  translation 
of  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  in  two  volumes,  put 
"  L'  Oncle  "  on  both,  and  numbered  them  "Tome 
i,"  "  Tome  2."  Charles  Cowden-Clarke  tells  of  his 
having  ordered  Leigh  Hunt's  poems  entitled  '•  Foli- 
age "  to  be  bound  in  green,  and  how  the  book  came 
home  in  blue.  That  would  answer  for  the  "  blue 
30 


grass  "  region  of  Kentucky.  I  have  no  patience  with 
those  disgusting  realists  who  bind  books  in  human 
or  snake  skin.  In  his  charming  book  on  the  Law  Re-     <w 
porters,   Mr.  Wallace  says  of  Desaussures'   South         ° 
Carolina  Reports  :  "  When  these  volumes  are  found 
in  their   original   binding  most  persons,  I  think,  are 
struck  with  its  peculiarity.  The  cause  of  it  is,  I  be- 
lieve, that  it  was  done  by  negroes."  What  the 
"peculiarity"  is  he  does  not  disclose.  But 
book-binding  seems  to  be  an  unwonted 
occupation  for  negro  slaves.  It  was 
not  often  that  they  beat  skins, 
although  their  own  skins 
were  frequently 
beaten. 


s- 


VI. 
PAPER. 

T  IS  a  serious  question  whether  the  art  of 
printing  has  been  improved  except  in  facility. 
Is  not  the  first  printed  book  still  the  finest  ever 
kj  printed  ?  But  in  one  point  I  am  certain  that  the 
moderns  have  fallen  away,  at  least  in  the  pro- 
duction of  cheap  books,  and  that  is  in  the 
quality  and  finish  of  the  paper.  Not  to  speak  of  in- 
jurious devices  to  make  the  book  heavy,  the  custom 
of  calendering  the  paper,  or  making  it  smooth  and 
shiny,  practised  by  some  important  publishers,  is  bad 
for  the  eyes,  and  the  result  is  not  pleasant  to  look  at. 
It  is  like  the  glare  of  the  glass  over  the  framed  print. 
It  is  said  to  be  necessary  to  the  production  of  the 
modern  "process"  pictures.  Even  here  however 
there  is  a  just  mean,  for  some  of  the  modern  paper 
is  absurdly  rough,  and  very  difficult  for  a  good  im- 
pression of  the  types.  Modern  paper  however  has  one 
advantage  :  Mr.  Blades,  in  his  pleasant  "  Enemies  of 
Books,"  tells  us  "  that  the  worm  will  not  touch  it," 
it  is  so  adulterated.  One  hint  I  would  give  the  pub- 
lishers— allow  us  a  few  more  fly  leaves,  so  that  we 
may  paste  in  newspaper  cuttings,  and  make  memo- 
randa and  suggestions  "fa*. 

It  is  predicted  by  some  that  our  nineteenth  century 
books — at  least  those  of  the  last  third — will  not  last ; 
that  the  paper  and  ink  are  far  inferior  to  those  of  pre- 
ceding centuries,  and  that  the  destroying  tooth  of 
32 


time  will  work  havoc  with  them.  No  doubt  the  mod- 
ern  paper  and  the  modern  ink  are  inferior  to  those 
of  the  earlier  ages  of  printing,  when  making  a  book 
was  a  fine  art  and  a  work  of  conscience,  but  whether 
the  modern  productions  of  the  press  will  ultimately 
fade  and  crumble  is  a  question  to  be  determined  only 
by  a  considerable  lapse  of  time,  which  probably  no 
one  living  will  be  qualified  to  pronounce  upon.  Take 
for  what  they  are  worth  my  sentiments  respecting 

THE  FAILING  BOOKS. 

jhey  say  our  books  will  disappear, 

That  ink  will  fade  and  paper  rot — 
I  sha'n't  be  here, 
So  I  don't  care  a  jot. 

The  best  of  them  I  know  by  heart, 
As  for  the  rest  they  make  me  tired ; 

The  viler  part 

May  well  be  fired. 

Oh,  what  a  hypocritic  show 
Will  be  the  bibliomaniac's  hoard ! 

Cheat  as  hollow 
As  a  backgammon  board. 

Just  think  of  Lamb  without  his  stuffing, 

And  the  iconoclastic  Ho  wells, 
Who  spite  of  puffing 

Is  destitute  of  bowels. 

33 


'Twould  make  me  laugh  to  see  the  stare 
(§oofh  Of  mousing  bibliomaniac  fond 

At  pages  bare 
As  Overreach's  bond. 

Those  empty  titles  will  displease 

The  earnest  student  seeking  knowledge, — 

Barren  degrees, 

Like  these  of  Western  College. 

That  common  stuff,  "  Excelsior," 

In  poetry  so  lacking, 
I  care  not  for — 

'Tis  only  fit  for  packing. 

It  has  occurred  to  me  that  publishers  might  appeal 
to  bibliomaniacal  tastes  by  paying  a  little  more  at- 
tention to  their  paper,  and  I  have  thrown  a  few  sug- 
gestions on  this  point  into  rhyme,  so  that  they  may 
be  readily  committed  to  memory : 

SUITING  PAPER  TO  SUBJECT. 

[rinters  the  paper  should  adapt 
Unto  the  subject  of  the  book, 

Thus  making  buyers  wonder-rapt 
Before  they  at  the  contents  look. 

Thus  Beerbohm's  learned  book  on  Eggs 

On  a  laid  paper  he  should  print, 
But  Motley's  "  Dutch  Republic"  begs 

Rice  paper  should  its  matter  hint. 
34 


That  curious  problem  of  what  Man 

Inhabited  the  Iron  Mask 
Than  Whatman  paper  never  can 

A  more  suggestive  medium  ask. 

The  "  Book  of  Dates,"  by  Mr.  Haydon, 
Should  be  on  paper  calendered ; 

That  Swift  on  Servants  be  arrayed  on 
A  hand-made  paper  is  inferred. 

Though  angling-books  have  never  been 

Accustomed  widely  to  appear 
On  fly-paper,  't  would  be  no  sin 

To  have  them  -wormed  from  front  to  rear. 

The  good  that  authors  thus  may  reap 

I'll  not  pursue  to  tedium, 
But  hint,  for  books  on  raising  sheep 

Buckram  is  just  the  medium. 


35 


VII. 
WOMEN  AS  COLLECTORS. 

OMEN  collect  all  sorts  of 
things  except  books.  To  them 
the  book-sense  seems  to  be  de- 
nied, and  it  is  difficult  for  them 
to  appreciate  its  existence  in 
men.  To  be  sure,  there  have 
been  a  few  celebrated  book-col- 
lectors among  the  fair  sex,  but 
they  have  usually  been  rather  reprehensible  ladies, 
like  Diane  de  Poictiers  and  Madame  Pompadour. 
Probably  Aspasia  was  a  collector  of  MSS.  Lady  Jane 
Grey  seems  to  have  been  a  virtuous  exception,  and 
she  was  cruelly  "  cropped."  I  am  told  that  there  are 
a  few  women  now-a-days  who  collect  books,  and 
only  a  few  weeks  ago  a  lady  read,  before  a  woman's 
club  in  Chicago,  a  paper  on  the  Collection  and  Adorn- 
ment of  Books,  for  which  occasion  a  fair  member  of 
the  club  solicited  me  to  write  her  something  appro- 
priate to  read,  which  of  course  I  was  glad  to  do.  But 
this  was  in  Chicago,  where  the  women  go  in  for  cul- 
ture. In  thirty  years'  haunting  of  the  book-shops  and 
print-shops  of  New  York,  I  have  never  seen  a  wom- 
an catching  a  cold  in  her  head  by  turning  over  the 
large  prints,  nor  soiling  her  dainty  gloves  by  hand- 
ling the  dirty  old  books.  Women  have  been  depicted 
in  literature  in  many  different  occupations,  situations 
and  pleasures,  but  in  all  the  literature  that  I  have 

36 


read  I  can  recall  only  one  instance  in  which  she  is 
imagined  a  book-buyer.  This  is  in  "  The  Sentimental 
Journey,"  and  in  celebrating  the  unique  instance  let 
me  rise  to  a  nobler  strain  and  sing  a  song  of 

THE  SENTIMENTAL  CHAMBERMAID, 
jihen  you're  in  Paris,  do  not  fail 

To  seek  the  Quai  de  Conti, 
Where  in  the  roguish  Parson's  tale, 

Upon  the  river  front  he 
Bespoke  the  pretty  chambermaid 
Too  innocent  to  be  afraid. 

On  this  book-seller's  mouldy  stall, 
Crammed  full  of  volumes  musty, 

I  made  a  bibliophilic  call 
And  saw,  in  garments  rusty, 

The  ancient  vender,  queer  to  view, 

In  breeches,  buckles,  and  a  queue. 

And  while  to  find  that  famous  book, 

"  L»es  Egaremens  du  Cceur," 
I  dilligently  undertook, 

I  suddenly  met  her  ; 
She  held  a  small  green  satin  purse, 
And  spite  of  Time  looked  none  the  worse. 

I  told  her  she  was  known  to  Fame 

Through  ministerial  Mentor, 
And  though  I  had  not  heard  her  name, 

That  this  should  not  prevent  her 
From  listening  to  the  homage  due 
To  one  to  Sentiment  so  true. 

37 


She  blushed ;  I  bowed  in  courtly  fashion  ; 

In  pockets  of  my  trousers 
Then  sought  a  crown  to  vouch  my  passion, 

Without  intent  to  rouse  hers ; 
But  I  had  left  my  purse  'twould  seem — 
And  then  I  woke — 'twas  but  a  dream  ! 

The  heart  will  wander,  never  doubt, 

Though  waking  faith  it  keep ; 
That  is  exceptionally  stout 

Which  strays  but  in  its  sleep ; 
And  hearts  must  always  turn  to  her 

Who  loved,  "  Les  Egaremens  du  Cceur." 

M.  Uzanne,  in  "The  Book-Hunter  in  Paris,"  avers 
that  "  the  woman  of  fashion  never  goes  book-hunt- 
ing," and  he  puts  the  aphorism  in  italics.  He  also 
says  that  the  occasional  woman  at  the  book-stalls, 
"  if  by  chance  she  wants  a  book,  tries  to  bargain 
for  it  as  if  it  were  a  lobster  or  a  fowl."  Also 
that  the  book-stall  keepers  are  always 
watchful  of  the  woman  with  an  ul- 
ster, a  water-proof,  or  a  muff. 
These   garments   are   not 
always  impervious 
to    books,   it 
seems. 


HE  imitative  efforts  of  women  at 
"  extra-illustrating  "  are  usually^ 
(limited  to  buying  a  set  of  photo- 
graphs at  Rome  and  sticking  them 
into  the  cracks  of  "The  Marble 
Faun,"  and  giving  it  away  to  a 
(friend  as  a  marked  favor  SHB  Poor 
|  Hawthorne  !  he  would  wriggle  in 
his  grave  if  he  could  see  his  fair 
admirers  doing  this.  Mr.  Blades 
certainly  ought  to  have  included 
women  among  the  enemies  of 
books.  They  generally  regard  the 
husband's  or  father's  expenditure 
on  books  as  so  much  spoil  of  their 
gowns  and  jewels.  We  book-men 
are  up  to  all  the  tricks  of  getting 
the  books  into  the  house  without 
their  knowing  it  ^  What  joy  and 
glee  when  we  successfully  smug- 
gle in  a  parcel  from  the  express, 
right  under  our  wife's  nose,  while 
she  is  busy  talking  scandal  to  an- 
other woman  in  the  drawing-room! 
The  good  creatures  make  us  posi- 
tively dishonest  and  endanger  our 
eternal  welfare.  How  we  "  hustle 
around"  in  their  absence,  when 
the  embargo  is  temporarily  raised  ; 
land  when  the  new  purchases  are 

39 


goofc 


detected,  how  we  pretend  that  they  are  old,  and 
wonder  that  they  have  not  seen  them  before,  and  rat- 
tle away  in  a  fevered,  embarrassed  manner  about  the 
scarcity  and  value  of  the  surreptitious  purchases, 
and  how  meanly  conscious  we  are  all  the  time  that 
the  pretense  is  unavailing  and  the  fair  despots  see 
right  through  us  %t  God  has  given  them  an  instinct 
that  is  more  than  a  match  for  our  acknowledged  su- 
perior intellect.  And  the  good  wife  smiles  quietly  but 
satirically,  and  says,  in  the  form  in  that  case  made 
and  provided,  "  My  dear,  you'll  certainly  ruin  your- 
self buying  books !  "  with  a  sigh  that  agitates  a  very 
costly  diamond  necklace  reposing  on  her  shapely 
bosom ;  or  she  archly  shakes  at  us  a  warning  finger 
all  aglow  with  ruby  and  sapphire,  which  she  has 
bought  on  installments  out  of  the  house  allowance. 
Fortunate  for  us  if  the  library  is  not  condemned 
to  be  cleaned  twice  a  year.  These  beloved  objects 
ought  to  deny  themselves  a  ring,  or  a  horse,  or  a 
gown,  or  a  ball  now  and  then,  to  atone  for  their  man- 
kind's debauchery  in  books ;  but  do  they  ?  They  ought 
to  encourage  the  Bibliomania,  for  it  keeps  their  hus- 
bands out  of  mischief,  away  from  "  that  horrid  club," 
and  safe  at  home  of  evenings.  The  Book- Worm  is  al- 
ways a  blameless  being.  He  never  has  to  hie  to  Can- 
ada as  a  refuge.  He  is  "  absolutely  pure,"  like  all  the 
baking  powders  **&& 

The  gentle  Addison,  in  "  The  Spectator,"  thus  de- 
scribed a  woman's  library :  "  The  very  sound  of  a 
lady's  library  gave  me  a  great  curiosity  to  see  it;  and 
40 


as  it  was  some  time  before  the  lady  came  to  me,  I 
had  an  opportunity  of  turning  over  a  great  many  of 
her  books,  which  were  ranged  together  in  a  very 
beautiful  order.  At  the  end  of  the  folios  (which  were 
finely  bound  and  gilt)  were  great  jars  of  china  placed 
one  above  another  in  a  very  noble  piece  of  architect- 
ure. The  quartos  were  separated  from  the  octavos 
by  a  pile  of  smaller  vessels,  which  rose  in  a  delight- 
ful pyramid  %*  The  octavos  were  bounded  by  tea- 
dishes  of  all  shapes,  colors,  and  sizes,  which  were  so 
disposed  on  a  wooden  frame  that  they  looked  like 
one  continued  pillar  indented  with  the  finest  strokes 
of  sculpture,  and  stained  with  the  greatest  variety  of 
dyes.  That  part  of  the  library  which  was  designed 
for  the  reception  of  plays  and  pamphlets,  and  other 
loose  papers,  was  inclosed  in  a  kind  of  square,  con- 
sisting of  one  of  the  prettiest  grotesque  works  that  I 
ever  saw,  and  made  up  of  scaramouches,  lions,  man- 
darins, monkeys,  trees,  shells,  and  a  thousand  other 
odd  figures  in  china  ware.  In  the  midst  of  the  room 
was  a  little  Japan  table  with  a  quire  of  gilt  paper  up- 
on it,  and  on  the  paper  a  silver  snuff-box  made  in 
shape  of  a  little  book.  I  found  there  were  several 
other  counterfeit  books  upon  the  upper  shelves,  which 
were  carved  in  wood,  and  served  only  to  fill  up  the 
number,  like  fagots  in  the  muster  of  a  regiment.  I 
was  wonderfully  pleased  with  such  a  mixed  kind  of 
furniture  as  seemed  very  suitable  both  to  the  lady 
and  the  scholar,  and  did  not  know  at  first  whether  I 
should  fancy  myself  in  a  grotto  or  in  a  library  "d§i 


If  so  great  a  favorite  with  the  fair  sex  could  say  such 
satirical  things  of  them,  I  may  be  permitted  to  have 
my  own  idea  of 

A  WOMAN'S  IDEA  OF  A  LIBRARY. 

do  not  care  so  much  for  books, 

But  Libraries  are  all  the  style, 
With  fine  "  editions  de  luxe  " 
One's  formal  callers  to  beguile  ; 

With  neat  dwarf  cases  round  the  walls, 

And  china  teapots  on  the  top, 
The  empty  shelves  concealed  by  falls 

Of  India  silk  that  graceful  drop. 

A  few  rare  etchings  greet  the  view, 

Like  "  Harmony  "  and  "  Harvest  Moon  ;  " 

An  artist's  proof  on  satin  too 

By  what's-his-name  is  quite  a  boon. 

My  print  called  "  Jupiter  and  Jo  " 

Is  very  rarely  seen,  but  then 
Another  copy  1  can  show 

Inscribed  with  "Jupiter  and  10." 

A  fisher  boy  in  marble  stoops 
On  pedestal  in  window  placed, 

And  one  of  Rogers'  lovely  groups 

Is  through  the  long  lace  curtains  traced. 

And  then  I  make  a  painting  lean 
Upon  a  white  and  gilded  easel, 
Illustrating  that  famous  scene 
42 


Of  Joseph  Andrews  and  Lady  Teazle. 

Of  course  my  shelves  the  works  reveal 
Of  Plutarch,  Rollin,  and  of  Tupper, 

While  Bowdler's  Shakespeare  and  "  Lucille  " 
Quite  soothe  one's  spirits  after  supper. 

And  when  I  visited  dear  Rome 

I  bought  a  lot  of  photographs, 
And  had  them  mounted  here  at  home, 

And  though  my  dreadful  husband  laughs, 

I've  put  them  in  "The  Marble  Faun," 
And  envious  women  vainly  seek 

At  Scribner's  shop,  from  early  dawn, 
To  find  a  volume  so  unique. 

And  monthly  here,  in  deep  surmise, 
Minerva's  bust  above  us  frowning, 

A  club  of  women  analyze 

The  works  of  Ibsen  and  of  Browning. 

N  the  charming  romance,  "  Realmah,"  the 
noble  African  prince  prescribes  monog- 
amy to  his  subjects,  but  he  allows  him- 
self three  wives  ;  one  is  a  State  wife,  to  sit 
by  his  side  on  the  throne,  help  him  receive  embass- 
adors,  and  preside  at  court  dinners  ;  another  a  house- 
hold wife,  to  rule  the  kitchen  and  the  homely  affairs 
of  the  palace ;  the  third  is  a  love-wife,  to  be  cher- 
ished in  his  heart  and  bear  him  children.  Why  would 
it  not  be  fair  to  the  Book- Worm  to  concede  him  a 

43 


Book-wife,  who  should  understand  and  sympathize 
with  him  in  his  eccentricity,  and  who  should  care 
more  for  rare  and  beautiful  books  than  for  diamonds, 
laces,  Easter  bonnets  and  ten-button  gloves  ?  £pi 
In  regard  to  women's  book-clubs,  a  recent  writer,  Mr. 
Edward  Sanford  Martin,  in  "  Windfalls  of  Observa- 
tion," observes:  "If  a  man  wants  to  read  a  book  he 
buys  it,  and  if  he  likes  it  he  buys  six  more  copies  and 
gives  (not  all  the  same  day,  of  course)  to  six  women 
whose  intelligence  he  respects.  But  if  a  club  of  fif- 
teen girls  determine  to  read  a  book,  do  they  buy  fif- 
teen copies  ?  No.  Do  they  buy  five  copies  ?  No.  Do 
they  buy — No,  they  don't  buy  at  all ;  they  borrow  a 
copy.  It  doesn't  lie  in  womankind  to  spend  money 
for  books  unless  they  are  meant  to  be  a  gift  for  some 
man."  Mr.  Martin  is  a  little  too  hard  here,  for  I  have 
been  told  of  such  clubs  which  sometimes  bought  one 
copy.  To  be  sure  they  always  bully  the  bookseller 
into  letting  them  have  it  at  cost  on  account  of  the 
probable  benefit  to  his  trade.  But  it  is  true  that  no 
normally  organized  woman  will  forego  a  dollar's 
worth  of  ribbon  or  gloves  for  a  dollar's  worth  of 
book  djt  I  have  sometimes  read  aloud  to  a  number  of 
•women  while  they  were  sewing,  but  I  do  it  no  more, 
for  just  as  I  got  to  a  point  where  you  ought  to  be  able 
to  hear  a  pin  drop,  I  always  have  heard  some  woman 
whisper,  "Lend  me  your  eighty  cotton."  A  story  was 
told  me  of  the  first  meeting  of  a  Browning  Club  in  a 
large  city  in  Ohio.  My  informant  was  a  young  lady 
from  the  East,  who  was  present,  and  my  readers  can 
44 


safely  rely  on  the  correctness  of  the  narration.  The 
club  was  composed  of  young  ladies  from  sixteen  to 
twenty-five  years  of  age,  all  of  the  "  first  families." 
It  was  thought  best  to  take  an  easy  poem  for  the  first 
meeting,  and  so  one  of  them  read  aloud,  "The  Last 
Ride  Together  "dgi  After  the  reading  there  was  a  mo- 
ment's silence,  and  then  one  observed  that  she  would 
like  to  know  whether  they  took  that  ride  on  horse- 
back or  in  a  "  buggy."  Another  silence,  and  then  an 
artless  young  bud  ventured  the  remark  that  she 
thought  it  must  have  been  in  a  buggy,  because  if  it  was 
on  horseback  he  could  not  have  got  his  arm  around 
her.  I  once  thought  of  sending  this  anecdote  to  Mr. 
Browning,  but  was  warned  that  he  was  destitute  of 
the  sense  of  humor,  especially  at  his  own  expense, 
and  so  desisted  >^£> 

"Ah,  that  our  wives  could  only  see 
How  well  the  money  is  invested 
In  these  old  books,  which  seem  to  be 
By  them,  alas  !  so  much  detested." 

But  the  wives  are  not  always  unwise  in  their  opposi- 
tion to  their  husband's  book-buying.  There  is  nothing 

more  pitiful  than  to  see  the 
widow  of  a  poor  clergyman 
or  lawyer  trying  to  sell  his 
library,  and  to  witness  her 
disappointment  at  the  j?n 
shrinkage  of  value  which 
she  had  been  taught  and 
accustomed  to  regard  as  so 

45 


great.  A  woman  who  has  a  true  and  wise  sympa- 
thy  with  her  husband's  book-buying  is  an  adored  ob- 
^ect"  I  recollect  one  such,  who  at  her  own  sug- 
gestion gave  up  the  largest  and  best  room 
in  her    house  to  her  husband's  books, 
and  received  her  callers  and  guests 
in  a  smaller  one — she  also  re- 
ceived   her    husband's 
blessing. 


THE 


VIII. 
ILLUSTRATOR. 


iHE  popular  notion  of  the  II- 
(lustrator,  as  the  term  is  used 
>y  the  Book- Worm,  is  that  he 
>uys  many  valuable  books 
[containing  pictures  and  spoils 
lem  by  tearing  the  pictures 
lout,  and  from  them  constructs 
(another  valuable  book  with 
>i<5lures.  We  smile  to  read 
this  in  the  newspapers.  If  it  were  strictly  true  it 
would  be  a  very  reprehensible  practice.  But  gener- 
ally the  books  compelled  to  surrender  their  prints  to 
the  Illustrator  are  good  for  nothing  else.  To  lament 
over  them  is  as  foolish  as  to  grieve  over  the  grape- 
skins  out  of  which  has  been  pressed  the  luscious  Jo- 
hannisburger,  or  to  mourn  over  the  unsightly  holes 
which  the  porcelain-potter  has  made  in  the  clay-bank. 
Even  among  Book- Worms  the  Illustrator,  or  the 
"  Grangerite,"  as  the  term  of  reproach  is,  has  come  in 
for  many  hard  knocks  in  recent  years.  John  Hill  Bur- 
ton set  the  tune  by  his  merry  satire  in  "The  Book- 
Hunter,"  in  which  he  portrays  the  Grangerite  illus- 
trating the  pious  Watts'  stanzas,  beginning,  "  How 
doth  the  little  busy  bee."  In  his  first  edition  Mr.  Bur- 
ton mentioned  among  "great  writers  on  bees," 
whose  portrait  would  be  desirable,  Aristarchus,  £pi 
meaning  probably  Aristomachus.  This  mistake  is  not 

47 


&00& 

TBorm 


#008; 


corrected  in  the  last  edition,  but  the  name  is  omitted 

alt°gether  y& 

^r*  Beverly  Chew  "drops  into  poetry"  on  the  sub- 

ject, and  thus  apostrophises  the  Grangerite  : 

"Ah,  ruthless  wight, 

Think  of  the  books  you've  turned  to  waste, 
With  patient  skill." 

R.  HENRI  PERE  DU  BOIS  thus 
describes  the  ordinary  result:  "Of  one 
hundred  books  extended  by  the  inser- 
tion of  prints  "which  were  not  made  for 
them,  ninety-nine  are  ruined  ;  ^  the 
hundredth  book  is  no  longer  a  book  ; 
it  is  a  museum.  An  imperfect  book,  built  with  the 
spoils  of  a  thousand  books  ;  a  crazy  quilt  made  of 
patches  out  of  gowns  of  queens  and  scullions."  So 
Burton  compares  the  Grangerite  to  Genghis  Kahn. 
Mr.  Lang  declares  the  Grangerites  are  "  book  ghouls, 
and  brood,  like  the  obscene  demons  of  Arabian  su- 
perstition, over  the  fragments  of  the  mighty  dead." 
I  would  like  to  show  Mr.  Lang  how  I  have  treated 
his  "  Letters  to  Dead  Authors  "  and  "  Old  Friends  " 
by  illustration.  He  would  probably  feel,  with  ^flEsop's 
lawyer,  that  "circumstances  alter  cases,"  although 
he  says  "  no  book  deserves  the  honor  "  fy 
So  a  reviewer  in  "  The  Nation"  stigmatises  Grang- 
erism  as  "  a  vampire  art,  maiming  when  it  does  not 
murder"  (I  did  not  know  that  vampires  "maim" 
their  victims)  "  and  incapable  of  rising  beyond  cani- 


balism  "  (not  that  they  feed  on  one  another,  but 
when  critics  get  excited  their  metaphors  are  apt  to 
become  mixed) ^^ 

«•  G.  W.  S.,"  of  the  New  York  «  Tribune,"  speaks  of 
the  achievement  of  the  Illustrators  as  "  colossal  vul- 
garities." Mr.  Percy  Fitzgerald  observes:  "The 
pitiless  Grangerite  slaughters  a  book  for  a  few  pic- 
tures, just  as  an  epicure  has  had  a  sheep  killed  for 
the  sweetbread"^ 

HESE  are  very  choice  hard  words.  There 
is  much  extravagance,  but  some  justice  in 
all  this  criticism.  As  a  question  of  econom- 
ics I  do  not  find  any  great  difference  be- 
tween a  Book- Worm  who  spends  thousands  of  dol- 
lars in  constructing  one  attractive  book  from  several 
not  attractive,  and  one  who  spends  a  thousand  dol- 
lars in  binding  a  book,  or  for  an  example  of  a  famous 
old  binder.  If  there  is  any  difference  it  is  in  favor  of 
the  Grangerite,  who  improves  the  volume  for  the  in- 
telligent purposes  of  the  reader,  as  against  the  other 
who  merely  caters  to  "  the  lust  of  the  eye  "^i 
I  am  willing  to  concede  that  the  Grangerite  is  some- 
times guilty  of  some  gross  offenses  against  good  taste 
and  good  sense.  The  worst  of  these  is  when  he  ex- 
tends the  text  of  the  volume  itself  to  a  larger  page  in 
order  to  embrace  large  prints.  This  is  grotesque,  for 
it  spoils  the  very  book.  He  is  also  blamable  when  he 
squanders  valuable  prints  and  time  and  patience  on 
mere  book  lumber,  such  as  long  rows  of  histories ; 
and  when  he  stuffs  and  crams  his  book ;  and  when 

49 


his  pictures  are  not  of  the  era  of  the  events  or  of  the 
time  of  life  of  the  persons  described  ;  and  when  they 
are  too  large  or  too  small  to  be  in  just  proportion  to 
the  printed  page  ;  and  when  the  book  is  so  heavy  and 
cumbersome  that  no  one  can  handle  it  with  comfort 
or  convenience.  Above  all  he  is  blamable,  in  my  esti- 
mation, when  he  entrusts  the  selection  of  prints  to  an 
agent.  Such  agency  is  frequently  very  unsatisfactory, 
and  at  all  events  the  Illustrator  misses  the  sport  of 
the  hunt.  Few  men  would  entrust  the  furnishing  or 
decorating  of  a  house,  the  purchase  of  a  horse,  or  the 
selection  of  a  wife  to  a  third  person,  and  the  delicate 
matter  of  choosing  prints  for  a  book  is  essentially  one 
to  be  transacted  in  person.  The  danger  of  any  other 
procedure  in  the  case  of  a  wife  was  illustrated  by 
Cromwell's  agency  for  Henry  Eighth  in  the  affair 
of  Anne  of  Cleves,  the  "  Flanders  mare." 

,UT  when  it  is  properly  done,  it  seems  to 
me  that  the  very  best  thing  the  Book- Worm 
ever  does  is  to  illustrate  his  books,  because 
(this  insures  his  reading  them,  at  least  with 
his  fingers.  Not  always,  for  a  certain  chronicler  of 
collections  of  privately  illustrated  books  in  this  coun- 
try narrates,  how  "relying  upon  the  index"  of  a 
book,  which  he  illustrated,  he  inserted  a  portrait  of 
Sam  Johnson,  the  famous,  whereas  "  the  text  called 
for  Sam  Johnson,  an  eccentric  dramatic  writer,"  etc. 
His  binder,  he  says,  laughed  at  him  for  being  igno- 
rant that  there  "  two  Sam  Johnsons  "  (there  are  four 
in  the  biographical  dictionaries,  one  of  whom  was  an 
50 


early  president  of  King's  College  in  New  York).  But 

if  done  personally  and  conscientiously  it  is  a  means 

of  valuable  culture.  As  one  of  the  oldest  surviv- 

ors  of  the  genus  Illustrator  in  this  country,  I 

have  thus  assumed  to  offer  an  apology 

and  defense  for  my  much  berated 

kind.  And  now  let  me  make  a 

few  suggestions  as  to  what 

seems  to  me  the  most 

suitable  mode   of 

the  pursuit. 


(goo 


ILLUSTRATING  there  seem  to  be 
two  methods,  which  may  be  described  as 
the  literal  or  realistic,  and  imaginative, 
'he  first  consists  simply  in  the  insertion 
)f  portraits,  views  and  scenes  appropri- 
ite  to  the  text.  A  pleasing  variety  may 
>e  imparted  to  this  method  by  substitut- 
ing for  a  mere  portrait  a  scene  in  the  life 
>f  the  celebrity  in  question  3fr  For  ex- 
imple,  if  Charles  V.  and  Titian  are  men- 
:ioned    together,  it  would  be    interest- 
ing to  insert  a  picture  representing  the 
listorical  incident  of  the  emperor  picking 
ip  and  handing  the  artist  a  brush  which  he 
[had  dropped — and  one  will  have  an  inter- 
esting hunt  to  find  it.  But  I  am  more  an 
adherent  of  the  romantic  school,  which 
finds  excellent  play  in  the  illustration  of 
poetry.  For  example,  in  the  poem,  "  En- 
nui," in  "The  Croakers,"  for  the  line, 
"The  fiend,  the  fiend  is  on  me  still,"  I 
found,  after  a  search  of  some  years,  a 
picture  of  an  imp  sitting  on  the  breast  of 
a  man  in  bed  with  the  gout.  In  the  same 
stanza  are  the  lines,  "  Like  a  cruel  cat, 
[that  sucks  a  child  to  death,"  and  for  this 
have  a  print  from  a  children's  maga- 
zine, of  a  cat  squatting  on  the  breast  of  a 
:hild  in  a  cradle.  Now  I  would  like  "  a 
(Madagascar  bat,"  which  rhymes  to  "cat" 


in  the  poem.  "And  like  a  tom-cat  dies  by  inches,"  is 
illustrated  by  a  picture  of  a  cat  caught  by  the  paw  in 
a  steel  trap.  "  Simon  "  was  "  a  gentleman  of  color,"  X. 
the  favorite  pastry  cook  and  caterer  of  New  York  half 
a  century  ago — before  the  days  of  Mr.  Ward  McAl- 
lister. "The  Croaker"  advises  him  to  "buy  an  eye- 
glass and  become  a  dandy  and  a  gentleman."  This  is 
illustrated  by  a  rare  and  fine  print  of  a  colored  gen- 
tleman, dressed  in  breeches,  silk  stockings,  and  ruf- 
fled shirt,  scanning  an  overdressed  lady  of  African 
descent  through  an  eye-glass.  "  The  ups  and  downs 
of  politics  "  is  illustrated  by  a  Cruikshank  print,  the 
upper  part  of  which  shows  a  party  making  an  ascen- 
sion in  a  balloon  and  the  lower  part  a  party  making 
a  descent  in  a  diving-bell,  and  entitled  "  the  ups  and 
downs  of  life."  To  illustrate  the  phrase,  "  seeing  the 
elephant,"  take  the  print  of  Pyrrhus  trying  to  fright- 
en his  captive,  Fabricus,  by  suddenly  drawing  the 
curtains  of  his  tent  and  showing  him  an  elephant 
with  his  trunk  raised  in  a  baggage-smashing  attitude. 
For  "The  Croakers  "  there  are  apt  illustrations  also 
of  the  following  queer  subjects  :  Korah,  Dathan  and 
Abiram  ;  Miss  Atropos,  shut  up  your  Scissors  ;  Alba- 
ny's two  Steeples  high  in  Air,  Reading  Cobbett's  Reg- 
ister, Bony  in  His  Prison  Isle,  Giant  Wife,  Beauty 
and  The  Beast,  Fly  Market,  Tammany  Hall,  The 
Dove  from  Noah's  Ark,  Rome  Saved  by  Geese,  Cae- 
sar Offered  a  Crown,  Caesar  Crossing  the  Rubicon, 
Dick  Ricker's  Bust,  Sancho  in  His  Island  Reigning, 
The  Wisest  of  Wild  Fowl,  Reynold'  Beer  House,  A 

53 


Mummy,   A   Chimney   Sweep,  The  Arab's    Wind, 
Pygmalion,  Danae,  Highland  Chieftain  with  His  Tail 
On,   Nightmare,   Shaking  Quakers,  Polony's  Crazy 
Daughter,  Bubble-Blowing,  First  Pair  of  Breeches, 
Banquo's  Ghost,  Press  Gang,  Fair  Lady  With  the 
Bandaged  Eye,  A  Warrior  Leaning  on  His  Sword, 
A  Warrior's  Tomb,  A  Duel,  and  A  Street  Flirtation. 
S  THE  charm  of  illustrating  consists  in 
the  hunt  for  the  prints,  so  the  latter  meth- 
od is  the  more  engrossing  because  the 
game  is  the  more  difficult  to  run  down. 


Portraits,  views  and  scenes  are  plenty,  but  to  find 
them  properly  adaptable  is  frequently  difficult.  Some 
things  which  one  would  suppose  readily  procurable 
are  really  hard  to  find.  For  example,  it  was  a  weary 
chase  to  get  a  treadmill,  and  so  of  a  drum-major,  al- 
though the  latter  is  now  not  uncommon :  and  although 
I  know  it  exists,  I  have  not  attained  unto  a  bastina- 
do. Sirens  and  mermaids  are  rather  retiring,  and 
when  Vedder  depicted  the  Sea-Serpent  he  conferred 
a  boon  on  Illustrators.  "  God's  Scales,"  in  which  the 
mendicant  weighs  down  the  rich  man,  is  a  rarity. 
Milton  leaving  his  card  on  Galileo  in  prison  is  among 
my  wants,  although  I  have  seen  it  dffc 
As  to  scarce  portraits,  let  me  sing  a  song  of 

THE  SHY  PORTRAITS. 

L,  why  do  you  elude  me  so — 

Ye  portraits  that  so  long  I've  sought  ? 
That  somewhere  ye  exist,  I  know — 
54 


Indifferent,  good,  and  good  for  naught. 

Lucrezia,  of  the  poisoned  cup,  (goo 

Why  do  you  shrink  away  by  stealth  ? 
To  view  your  "  mug"  with  you  I'd  sup, 

And  even  dare  to  drink  your  health. 

Oh  !  why  so  coy,  Godiva  fair  ? 

You're  covered  by  your  shining  tresses, 
And  I  would  promise  not  to  stare 

At  sheerest  of  go-diving  dresses. 

Come  out,  old  Bluebeard ;  don't  be  shy ! 

You're  not  so  bad  as  Froude's  great  hero; 
Xantippe,  fear  no  law  gone  by 

When  scolds  were  ducked  in  ponds  at  zero. 

Not  mealy-mouthed  was  Mrs.  Behn, 

And  prudish  was  satiric  Jane, 
But  equally  they  both  shun  men, 

As  if  they  bore  the  mark  of  Cain. 

George  Barrington,  you  may  return 

To  country  which  you  "  left  for  good ;  " 
Psalmanazar,  I  would  not  spurn 

Your  language  when  't  was  understood. 

Jean  Grolier,  you  left  many  books — 

They  come  so  dear  I  must  ignore  'em — 

But  there's  no  evidence  of  your  looks 
For  us  surviving  "  amicorum." 

This  country  's  overrun  by  grangers — 

55 


I'm  ignorant  of  their  Christian  names 
But  my  afflicted  eyes  are  strangers 
*^°  one  *  want  whom  men  call  James. 

There's  Heber,  man  of  many  books — 
You're  far  more  modest  than  the  Bishop ; 

I'm  curious  to  learn  your  looks, 
And  care  for  nothing  shown  at  his  shop. 

And  oh  !  that  wondrous,  pattern  child  ! 

His  truthfulness,  no  one  can  match  it; 
Dear  little  George  !  I'm  almost  wild 

To  find  a  wood-cut  of  his  hatchet. 

Show  forth  your  face,  Anonymous, 
Whose  name  is  in  the  books  I  con 

Most  frequently  ;  so  famous  thus, 
Will  you  not  come  to  me  anon  ? 


[Y  way  of  jest  I  have  inserted  an  anonymous 
portrait  opposite  an  anonymous  poem,  and 
I  was  once  gravely  asked  by  an  absent-minded 
I  friend  if  it  really  was  the  portrait  of  the  au- 
thor. One  however  will  probably  look  in  vain  for  por- 
traits of  "Quatorze"  and  "Quinze,"  for  which  a  print 
seller  of  New  York  once  had  an  inquiry,  and  I  have 
been  told  of  a  collector  who  returned  Arlington  be- 
cause of  the  cut  on  his  nose,  and  Ogle  because  of  his 
damaged  eye.  But  there  is  more  sport  in  hunting  for 
a  dodo  than  a  rabbit  \<P 

It  is  also  a  pleasant  thing  to  lay  a  picture  occasion- 
ally in  a  book  without  setting  out  to  illustrate  it  reg- 

56 


ularly,  so  that  it  may  break  upon  one  as  a  surprise 
when  he  takes  up  the  book  years  afterward.  It  is  a 
grateful  surprise  to  find  in  Ruskin's  "  Modern  Paint- 
ers"  a  casual  print  from  Roger's  "  Italy,"  and  in 
Hamerton's  books  some  sporadic  etchings  by  Rem- 
brandt or  Hayden.  It  is  like  discovering  an  unexpect- 
ed "  quarter  "  in  the  pocket  of  an  old  waistcoat.  For 
example,  in  "  With  Thackeray  in  America,"  Mr.  Eyre 
Crowe  tells  how  the  second  number  of  the  first  edi- 
tion of  "  The  Newcomes  "  came  to  the  author  when 
he  was  in  Paris,  and  how  he  found  fault  with  Doyle's 
illustration  of  the  games  of  the  Charterhouse  boys. 
He  says:  "The  peccant  accessory  which  roused  the 
wrath  of  the  writer  was  the  group  of  two  boys  play- 
ing at  marbles  on  the  left  of  the  spectator.  '  Why,' 
said  the  irate  author,  *  they  would  as  soon  thought 
of  cutting  off  their  heads  as  play  marbles  at  the  Char- 
terhouse!' This  woodcut  was,  I  noticed,  suppressed 
altogether  in  subsequent  editions."  Now  in  my  copy 
— not  being  the  possessor  of  the  first  edition — I  have 
made  a  reference  to  Mr.  Crowe's  passage,  and  sup- 
plied the  suppressed  cut  from  an  early  American  copy 
which  cost  me  twenty-five  cents.  How  many  of  the 
first  edition  men  know  of  the  interesting  fact  narrat- 
ed by  Mr.  Crowe  ?  The  Illustrator  ought  always  at 
least  to  insert  the  portrait  of  the  author  whenever  it 
has  been  omitted  by  the  publisher  <^ 
Second :  What  to  illustrate.  The  Illustrator  should 
not  be  an  imitator  or  follower,  but  should  strive  after 
an  unhackneyed  subject.  A  man  is  not  apt  to  marry 

57 


the  woman  who  flings  herself  at  his  head ;  he  loves 
the  excitement  of  courting ;  and  so  there  is  not  much 
amusement  in  utilizing  common  pictures,  but  the 
charm  consists  in  hunting  for  scarce  ones.  It  is  very 
natural  to  tread  in  others'  tracks,  and  easy,  because 
the  market  affords  plenty  of  material  for  the  common 
subjects.  Shakespeare  and  Walton  and  Boswell's 
Johnson,  and  a  few  other  things  of  that  sort,  have 
been  done  to  death,  and  there  is  fairer  scope  in 
something  else.  Biographies  of  Painters,  Elia's  Es- 
says, Sir  Thomas  Browne's  "  Religio  Medici"  and 
"Urn  Burial,"  "  Childe  Harold,"  Horace,  Virgil, 
the  Life  of  Bayard,  or  of  Vittoria  Colonna,  or  Phil- 
ip Sidney,  and  Sappho  are  charming  subjects, 
and  not  too  common.  A  ponderous  or  voluminous 
work  lends  itself  less  conveniently  to  the  purpose 
than  a  small  book  in  one  or  two  volumes.  Great  quar- 
tos and  folios  are  mere  mausoleums  or  repositories 
for  expensive  prints,  too  huge  to  handle,  and  too  ex- 
tensive for  any  one  ever  to  look  through,  and  there- 
fore they  afford  little  pleasure  to  the  owners  or  their 
guests.  An  illustrated  Shakespeare  in  thirty  vol- 
umes is  theoretically  a  very  grand  object,  but  I  should 
never  have  the  heart  to  open  it,  and  as  for  histories, 
I  should  as  soon  think  of  illustrating  a  dictionary. 
Walton  is  a  lovely  subject,  but  I  would  adopt  a  small 
copy  and  keep  it  within  two  or  three  volumes.  After 
all  there  is  nothing  so  charming  as  a  single  little  il- 
lustrated volume,  like  "  Ballads  of  Books,"  compiled 
by  Brander  Matthews ;  Andrew  Lang's  "  Letters  to 

58 


Dead  Authors,"  or  "Old  Friends,"  Friswell's  "  Va- 
ria,"  the  "  Book  of  Death,"  "  Melodies  and  Madri- 
gals,"  "The  Book  of  Rubies,"  Winter's  "Shakes- 
peare's  England." 

GENTLEMAN  who  published,  a  good 
many  years  ago,  a  monograph  of  privately 
illustrated  books  in  this  country,  spoke  of 
the  work  that  1  had  done  in  this  field,  and 


criticised  me  for  my  "  apparent  want  of  method," 
"eccentricity,"  "madness,"  "vagaries,"  "  omnivo- 
rousness,"  and  "lack  of  speciality  or  system,"  and 
finally,  although  he  blamed  me  for  having  illustrated 
pretty  much  everything,  he  also  blamed  me  for  not 
having  illustrated  any  "biographical  works."  This 
criticism  seems  not  only  inconsistent,  but  without 
basis,  for  one  man  may  not  dictate  to  another  what  he 
shall  prefer  to  illustrate  for  his  own  amusement,  any 
more  than  what  sort  of  a  house  or  pictures  he  shall 
buy  or  what  complexion  or  stature  his  wife  shall 
have.  The  author  also  did  me  the  honor  to  spell  my 
name  wrong,  and  did  the  famous  Greek  amatory  poet 
the  honor  of  mentioning  among  my  illustrated  work, 
"  Odes  to  Anacreon."  Would  that  I  could  find  that 
book !  && 

I  offer  these  suggestions  with  diffidence,  and  with  no 
intention  to  impose  my  taste  upon  others  1^1 
If  the  Illustrator  can  get  or  make  something  abso- 
lutely unique  he  is  a  fortunate  man.  For  example,  I 
know  one,  stigmatized  as  eccentric,  who  has  illus- 
trated a  printed  catalogue  of  his  own  library  with 

59 


portraits  of  the  authors,  copies  of  prints  in  the  books, 
anc*  duplicates  of  engraved  title-pages  ;  also  one  who 
has  illustrated  a  collection  in  print  or  in  manuscript 
of  his  own  poems ;  also  one  who  has  illustrated  a 
Life  of  Hercules,  written  by  himself,  printed  by  one 
of  his  own  family,  and  adorned  with  prints  from  an- 
tique gems  and  other  subjects ;  and  even  a  lawyer 
who  has  illustrated  a  law  book  written  by  himself, 
in  which  he  has  found  place  for  prints  so  diverse  and 
apparently  out  of  keeping  as  Jonah  and  the  whale, 
John  Brown,  a  man  pacing  the  floor  in  a  nightgown 
with  a  crying  baby,  a  "darkey"  shot  in  a  melon-patch, 
an  elephant  on  the  rampage,  Cupid,  Hudibras  writing 
a  letter,  Joanna  Southcote,  Launce  and  his  dog,  a  dog 
catching  a  boy  going  over  a  wall,  Dr.  Watts,  Rob- 
inson Crusoe,  Barnum  in  the  form  of  a  hum-bug,  Ja- 
cob Hall  the  rope  dancer,  Lord  Mayor's  procession, 
Raphael  discoursing  to  Adam,  gathering  sea-weed, 
Artemus  Ward,  a  whale  ashore,  a  barber-shop,  Gil- 
pin's  ride,  King  Lear,  St.  Lawrence  on  his  gridiron, 
Charles  Lamb,  Terpsichore,  and  a  child  tumbling  into 
a  well.  The  owner  of  such  a  book  may  be  sure  that 
it  is  unique,  as  the  man  was  certain  his  coat  of  arms 
was  genuine,  because  he  made  it  himself  fy 
Third :  the  Illustrator  should  not  be  in  a  hurry. 

[ERE  are  three  singular  things  about  the 
tunt  for  pictures.  One  is,  the  moment  you 
tave   your    book  bound,  no   matter  how 
tany  years  you  may  have  waited,  some 
rare  picture  you  wanted  is  sure  to  turn  up.  Hence 
60 


the  reluctance  of  the  Illustrator  to  commit  himself 
to  binding,  a  reluctance  only  paralleled  by  that  of 
the  lover  to  marry  the  woman  he  had  courted  for  ten 
years,  because  then  he  would  have  no  place  to  spend 
his  evenings.  (I  have  had  books  "in  hand"  for 
twenty  years) . 

NOTHER  is,  when  you  have  found  your 
rare  picture  you  are  pretty  certain  to  find 
one  or  two  duplicates.  Prints,  like  acci- 
dents or  crimes, seem  to  come  in  cycles  and 


schools.  I  have  known  a  man  to  search  in  vain  in 
thirty  print-shops  in  London,  and  coming  home  find 
what  he  wanted  in  a  New  York  print-shop,  and  two 
copies  at  that.  The  third  is,  that  you  are  continually 
coming  very  near  the  object  without  quite  attaining 
it.  Thus  one  may  get  Lady  Godiva  alone,  and  the  ef- 
figy of  Peeping  Tom  on  the  corner  of  an  old  house  at 
Coventry,  but  to  procure  the  whole  scene  is,  so  far 
as  I  know,  out  of  the  question.  It  would  seem  that 
Mr.  Anthony  Comstock  has  put  his  ban  on  it.  So  one 
will  find  it  difficult  to  get  "  God's  scales,"  in  which 
wealth  and  poverty  are  weighed  against  each  other, 
but  I  have  had  other  scales  thrust  at  me,  such  as 
those  in  which  the  emblems  of  love  are  weighed 
against  those  of  religion,  and  a  king  against  a  beggar, 
but  even  the  latter  is  not  the  precise  thing,  for  in  these 
days  there  are  poor  kings  and  rich  beggars  **&& 
One  opinion  in  which  all  illustrators  agree  seems 
sound,  and  that  is,  that  photographs  are  not  to  be 
tolerated.  Photography  is  the  most  misrepresenta- 

61 


tive  of  arts.  But  an  exception  may  be  indulged  in  the 
case  of  those  few  celebrities  who  are  too  modest  to 
TBorm      a^ow  themselves  to  be  engraved,  and  of  whom  pho- 
tography furnishes  the  only  portraiture  $*  A  photo- 
graphic copy  of  a  rare  portrait  in  oil  is  also  admissi- 
ble. Some  also  exclude  wood-cuts.  I  am  not  such  a 
purist  as  that.  They  are  frequently  the  only  means  of 
illustrating  a  subject,  and  small  and  fine  wood-cuts 
form  charming  head  and  tail  pieces   and  marginal 
adornments.    One   who    eschews    wood-cuts    must 
forego  such  interesting  little  subjects  as  Washing- 
ton and  his  little  hatchet,  God's  scales,  the  skele- 
ton  in    the    closet,   and   many   of   those   which    I 
have  particularized  t^i  I   flatter  myself    that   I 
have  made   the   margins  of  a   good   many 
books  very  interesting  by  means  of  small 
wood-cuts,  of  which  our  modern 
magazines   provide   an   abun- 
dant  and   exquisite   sup- 
ply. These  furnish  a 
copious  source  of 
specific  illus- 
tration. 


ITH  their    zeal   illustrators  are 
sometimes  apt  to  be  anachronis- 
ic.  Every  book  ought  to  be  illus- 
trated in  the  spirit  and  costume  of 
its  time.  The  book  should  not  be 
tuffed  too  full  of  prints;  let  a  bet- 
er  proportion  be  preserved  be- 
ween  the  text  and  the  illustra- 
ions  than  Falstaff  observed  be- 
een  his  bread  and  his  sack.  The 
rints  should  not  be  so  numerous 
s  to  cause  the  text  to  be  forgot- 
en,  as  in  the  case  of  a  tedious 


robably  nearly  every  collector 
xpects  that  his  treasures  will  be 
ispersed  at  his  death,  if  not  soon- 
r.  But  it  is  a  serious  question  to 
he  illustrator,  what  will  become 
f   these   precious   objects   upon 
hich  he  has  spent  so  much  time, 
nought  and  labor,  and  for  which 
e  has  expended  so  much  money. 
e  never  cares  and  rarely  knows, 
d  if  he  knows  he  never  tells, 
ow  much  they  have  cost,  but  he 
may  always  be  certain  that  they 
will  never  fetch  their  cost.  Let  us 
not  indulge  in  any  false  dreams  on 
this  subject.  The  time  may  have 

63 


been  when  prints  were  cheap  and  when  the  illustra- 
tor  may  have  been  able  to  make  himself  whole  or 

even  reaP  a  Profit»  but  that  da7  *  believe  has  gone 
by  £jt  One  can  hardly  expect  that  his  family  will  care 
for  these  things  ;  the  son  generally  thinks  the  Book- 
Worm  a  bore,  and  the  wife  of  one's  bosom  and 
the  daughter  of  one's  heart  usually  affect  more  in- 
terest than  they  feel,  and  if  they  kept  such  objects 
would  do  so  from  a  sense  of  duty  alone,  as  the 
ancient  Romans  preserved  the  cinerary  urns  of  their 
ancestors.  For  myself,  I  have  often  imagined  my 
grandson  listlessly  turning  over  one  of  my  favorite 
illustrated  volumes,  and  saying,  "  What  a  funny  old 
duffer  grandad  must  have  been!"  Such  a  book-club,  as 
the  "Grolier,"  of  New  York,  is  a  fortunate  avenue 
of  escape  from  these  evils.  There  one  might  deposit 
at  least  some  of  his  peculiar  treasures,  certain  that 
they  would  receive  good  care,  be  regarded  with  per- 
manent interest,  and  keep  alive  his  memory. 

O  AUGMENT  his  books  by  inserting  prints 
is  ordinarily  just  the  one  thing  which  the 
Book- Worm  can  do  to  render  them  in  a 
deeper  sense  his  own,  and  to  gain  for  him- 
self a  peculiar  proprietorship  in  them.  Generally  he 
cannot  himself  bind  them,  but  by  this  means  he  may 
render  himself  a  coadjutor  of  the  author,  and  place 
himself  on  equal  terms  with  the  printer  and  the 
binder  •*£& 

After  he  has  illustrated  a  favorite  book  once,  it  is  an 
enjoyable  occupation  for  the  Book- Worm  to  do  it  over 

64 


again,  in  a  different  spirit  and  with  different  pictures. 
"  Second  thoughts  are  best,"  it  has  been  said,  and  I 
have  more  than  once  improved  my  subject  by  a  sec- 
ond  treatment  '^jOf* 

There  is  another  form  of  illustration,  of  which  I  have 
not  spoken,  and  that  is  the  insertion  of  clippings  from 
magazines  and  newspapers  in  the  fly  leaves.  Some- 
times these  are  of  intense  interest.  My  own  Dickens, 
Thackeray  and  Hawthorne,  in  particular  have  their 
porticoes  and  posterms  plentifully  supplied  with  ma- 
terial of  this  sort  $pj  The  latest  contribution  of  this 
kind  is  to  "  Martin  Chuzzlewit,"  and  consists  in  the 
information  that  a  western  American  "land-shark" 
has  recently  swindled  people  by  selling  them 
swamp-lots,  attractively  depicted  on  a  map 
and  named  Eden  $p»  In  my  Pepys  I  have 
laid  Mr.  Lang's  recent  letter  to  the 
diarist.  So  on  a  fly  leaf  of  Haw- 
thorne's Life  it  is  pleasing 
to  see  a  cut  of  his  little 
red  house  at  Lenox, 
now    destroy- 
ed by  fire. 


BOOK-PLATES. 

Worm      ^*-^  ^_        RATHER  modern   form   of 

book-spoliation  has  arisen  in 
the  collection  of  book-plates. 
These  are  literally  derived  "ex 
libris,"  and  the  business  can- 
not be  indulged,  as  a  general 
|thing,  without  in  some  sense 
despoiling  books.  It  cannot  be 
denied  that  it  is  a  fascinating 

pursuit.  So  undoubtedly  is  the  taking  of  watches  or 
rings  or  other  "  articles  of  bigotry  or  virtue,"  on  the 
highway  $»  But  somehow  there  is  something  so  es- 
sentially personal  in  a  book-plate,  that  it  is  hard  to 
understand  why  other  persons  than  the  owners 
should  become  possessed  by  a  passion  for  it.  Many 
years  ago  when  Burton,  the  great  comedian,  was  in 
his  prime,  he  used  to  act  in  a  farce  called  "Toodles" 
— at  all  events,  that  was  his  name  in  the  play — and 
he  was  afflicted  with  a  wife  who  had  a  mania  for  at- 
tending auctions  and  buying  all  kinds  of  things,  use- 
ful or  useless,  provided  that  they  only  seemed  cheap. 
One  day  she  came  home  with  a  door-plate,  inscrib- 
ed, "Thompson" — "Thompson  with  a  p,"  as  Toodles 
wrathfully  described  it;  and  this  was  more  than 
Toodles  could  stand.  He  could  not  see  what  possible 
use  there  could  ever  be  in  that  door-plate  for  the 
Toodles  family.  In  those  same  days,  there  used  to  be 
66 


displayed  on  the  door  of  a  modest  house,  on  the  east 
side  of  Broadway,  in  the  city  of  New  York,  some- 
where  about  Eighth  Street,  a  silver  door-plate  in- 
scribed,  "  Mr.  Astor."  This  appertained  to  the  origi- 
nal John  Jacob  ^  *n  those  days  I  frequently  remark- 
ed it,  and  thought  what  a  prize  it  would  be  to  Mrs. 
Toodles  or  some  collector  of  door-plates.  Now  I  can 
understand  why  one  might  acquire  a  taste  for  collect- 
ing book-plates  of  distinguished  men  or  famous  book- 
collectors,  just  as  one  collects  autographs ;  but  why 
collect  hundreds  and  thousands  of  book-plates  of  un- 
distinguished and  even  unknown  persons,  frequently 
consisting  of  nothing  more  than  family  coats-of-arms, 
or  mere  family  names  ?  I  must  confess  that  I  share 
to  a  certain  extent  in  Mr.  Lang's  antipathy  to  this 
species  of  collecting,  and  am  disposed  to  call  down 
on  these  collectors  Shakespeare's  curse  on  him  who 
should  move  his  bones.  But  I  cannot  go  with  Mr. 
Lang  when  he  calls  these  well-meaning  and  by  no 
means  mischevious  persons  some  hard  names. 

'N  SOME  localities  it  is  quite  the  vogue  to 
take  off  the  coffin-plate  from  the  coffin — all 
i  the  other  silver  "  trimmings,"  too,  for  that 
I  matter — and  preserve  it,  and  even  have  it 
framed  and  hung  up  in  the  home  of  the  late  lamented. 
There  may  be  a  sense  of  proprietorship  in  the  mourn- 
ers, who  have  bought  and  paid  for  it,  and  see  no  good 
reason  for  burying  it,  that  will  justify  this  practice. 
At  all  events  it  is  a  family  matter.  The  coffin  plate 
reminds  the  desolate  survivors  of  the  person  desig- 


nated,  who  is  shelved  forever  in  the  dust.  But  what 
would  be  said  of  the  sense  or  sanity  of  one  who 
should  go  about  collecting  and  framing  coffin-plates, 
cataloguing  them,  and  even  exchanging  them  ? 

OOK-WORMS  penetrate  to  different  dis- 
tances in  books.  Some  go  no  further  than 
the  title  page  ;  others  dig  into  the  preface 
r  bore  into  the  table  of  contents;  a  few  be- 
gin excavations  at  the  close,  to  see  "how  it  comes 
out."  But  that  Worm  is  most  easily  satisfied  who 
never  goes  beyond  the  inside  of  the  front  cover,  and 
passes  his  time  in  prying  off  the  book-plates  j£ 
I  think  I  have  heard  of  persons  who  collect  colo- 
phons. These  go  to  work  in  the  reverse  direction, 
and  are  even  more  reprehensible  than  the  accumula- 
tors of  book-plates,  because  they  inevitably  ruin  the 


A  book-plate  is  appropriate,  sometimes  ornamental, 
even  beautiful,  in  its  intended  place  in  the  proprie- 
tor's book.  Out  of  that,  with  rare  exceptions,  it 
strikes  one  like  the  coffin-plate,  framed  and  hanging 
on  the  wall  c£<  It  gives  additional  value  and  attract- 
iveness to  a  book  which  one  buys,  but  it  ought  to  re- 
main there  ^^^^ 

If  one  purchases  books  once  owned  by  A,  B  and  C  — 
undistinguished  persons,  or  even  distinguished  —  con- 
taining their  autographs,  he  does  not  cut  them  out  to 
form  a  collection  of  autographs  d$i  If  the  name  is  not 
celebrated,  the  autograph  has  no  interest  or  value  ; 
if  famous,  it  has  still  greater  interest  and  value  by 
68 


remaining  in  the  book.  So  it  seems  to  me  it  should 
be  in  respect  to  book-plates  jfr  Let  Mr.  Astor's  door- 
plate  stay  on  his  front  door,  and  let  the  energetic  Mrs. 
Toodles  content  herself  in  buying  something  less  in- 
vididual  and  more  adaptable. 

BOOK-PLATE  really  is  of  no  value 
except  to  the  owner,  as  the  man  says 
of  papers  which  he  has  lost.  It  can- 
not be  utilized  to  mark  the  posses- 
sions of  another.  In  this  respect  it  is 
of  inferior  value  to  the  door-plate, 
for  possibly  another  Mr.  Astor  might  arise,  to  whom 
the  orignal  door-plate  might  be  sold.  A  Boston  news- 
paper tells  of  a  peddler  of  door-plates  who  contract- 
ed to  sell  a  Salem  widow  a  door-plate ;  and  when 
she  gave  him  her  name  to  be  engraved  on  it,  gave 
only  her  surname,  objecting  to  any  first  name  or  in- 
itials, observing :  "  I  might  get  married  again,  and 
if  my  initials  or  first  name  were  on  the  plate,  it  would 
be  of  no  use.  If  they  are  left  off,  the  plate  could  be 
used  by  my  son."  M£«H? 

Thus  much  about  collecting  book-plates.  One  word 
may  be  tolerated  about  the  character  of  one's  own 
book-plate.  To  my  taste,  mere  coats-of-arms  with 
mottoes  are  not  the  best  form,  j^i  They  simply  denote 
ownership.  They  might  well  answer  some  further 
purpose,  as  for  example  to  typify  the  peculiar  tastes 
of  the  proprietor  in  respect  to  his  books.  A  portrait 
of  the  owner  is  not  objectionable,  indeed  is  quite 
welcome  in  connection  with  some  device  or  motto 


pertaining  to  books  and  not  to  mere  family  descent. 
But  why,  although  a  collector  may  have  a  favorite 
aut^or»  like  Hawthorne  or  Thackeray,  for  example, 
should  he  insert  his  portrait  in  his  book-plate,  as 
is  often  done  ?  Mr.  Howells  would  writhe  in  his  grave 
if  he  knew  that  somebody  had  stuck  Thackeray's 
portrait  or  Scott's  in  "  Silas  Lapham,"  and  those 
Calvinists  who  think  that  the  "Scarlet  Letter"  is 
wicked,  would  pronounce  damnation  on  the  man  who 
should  put  the  gentle  Hawthorne's  portrait  in  a  relig- 
ious book  A  To  be  sure,  one  might  have  a  variety  of 
book-plates,  with  portraits  appropriate  to  different 
kinds  of  books — Napoleon's  for  military,  Calvin  for 
religious,  Walton's  for  angling  and  a  composite  por- 
trait of  Howells-James  for  fiction  of  the  photographic 
school ;  but  this  would  involve  expense  and  destroy 
the  intrinsic  unity  desirable  in  the  book-plate.  So  let 
the  portrait,  if  any,  be  either  that  of  the  proprietor 
or  a  conventional  image.  If  I  were  to  relax  and  al- 
low a  single  exception  it  would  be  in  favor  of  dear 
Charles  Lamb's  portrait  in  "  Eraser's,"  representing 
him  as  reading  a  book  by  candle  light.  (For  the  mo- 
ment this  idea  pleases  me  so  much  that  I  feel  half 
inclined  to  eat  all  my  foregoing  words  on  this  point, 
and  adopt  it  for  myself.  At  any  rate,  I  hereby  pre- 
empt the  privilege.) 

'  HAVE  referred  to  Mr.  Lang's  antipathy  to 
book-plate  collectors,  and  while,  as  I  have 
observed,  he  goes  to  extravagant  lengths  in 
condemning  their  pursuit,  still  it  may  be  of 


interest  to  my  readers  to  know  just  what  he  says 
about  them,  and  so  I  reproduce  below  a  ballad  on  the 
subject,  with   (the   material   for)  which  he   kindly     ^ 
supplied  me  when  I  solicited  his  mild  expression  of 
opinion  on  the  subject : 

THE  SNATCHERS. 

i HE  Romans  snatched  the  Sabine  wives  ; 

The  crime  had  some  extenuation, 
For  they  were  leading  lonely  lives 

And  driven  to  reckless  desperation. 

Lord  Elgin  stripped  the  Grecian  frieze 

Of  all  its  marbles  celebrated, 
So  our  art-students  now  with  ease 

Consult  the  figures  overrated. 

Napoleon  stole  the  southern  pictures 
And  hung  them  up  to  grace  the  Louvre  ; 

And  though  he  could  not  make  them  fixtures, 
They  answered  as  an  art-improver. 

Bold  men  ransack  an  Egyptian  tomb, 
And  with  the  mummies  there  make  free  ; 

Such  intermeddling  with  Time's  womb 
May  aid  in  archeology. 

So  Cruncher  dug  up  graves  in  haste, 
To  sell  the  corpses  to  the  doctors  ; 
This  trade  was  not  against  his  taste, 
Though    Misses    "  flopped,"    and  vowed    it 
shocked  hers. 

7* 


The  modern  snatcher  sponges  leaves 
And  boards  of  books  to  crib  their  labels  ; 

Most  petty,  trivial  of  thieves, 
Surpassing  all  we  read  in  fables. 

He  pastes  them  in  a  big,  blank  book 
To  show  them  to  some  rival  fool, 

And  I  .pronounce  him,  when  I  look, 
An  almost  idiotic  ghoul. 


X. 

THE  BOOK-AUCTIONEER. 

[HERE  is  one  figure  that 
| stands  in  a  very  unpleasant 
(relation  to  books  **£& 
\  If  anybody  has  any  curiosity 
j  to  know  what  I  consider  the 
j  most  undesirable  occupation 
I  of  mankind,  I  will  answer  can- 
jdidly — that  of  an  auctioneer 
[of  private  libraries.  It  does  not 
seem  to  have  fallen  into  disrepute  like  that  of  the 
headsman  or  hangman,  and  perhaps  it  is  as  unpleas- 
antly essential  as  that  of  the  undertaker.  But  it  gen- 
erally thrives  on  the  unhappiness  of  those  who  are 
compelled  to  part  with  their  books,  on  the  rivalries 
of  the  rich,  and  the  strifes  of  the  trade  dpi  It  was 
urged  against  Mr.  Cleveland,  on  his  first  canvass  for 
the  Presidency,  that  when  he  was  sheriff  he  had 
hanged  a  murderer.  For  my  own  part,  I  admired  him 
for  performing  that  solemn  office  himself  rather  than 
hiring  an  underling  to  do  it.  But  if  he  had  been  a 
book-auctioneer,  I  might  have  been  prejudiced  against 
him  v€^ 

Not  so  ignoble  and  inhuman  perhaps  as  that  of  the 
slave-seller,  still  the  business  must  breed  a  sort  of 
callousness  which  is  abhorrent  to  the  genial  Book-*7' 
Worm.  How  I  hate  the  glib  rattle  of  his  tongue,  the 
mouldiness  of  his  jests  and  the  transparency  of  his 

73 


puffery!  I  should  think  he  would  hate  himself.  It  must 
ke  worse  than  acting  Hamlet  or  Humpty  Dumpty  a 
hundred  consecutive  nights  4jb  Dante  had  no  punish- 
ment for  the  Book-Worm  in  hell,  if  I  remember 
right,  but  if  he  deserved  any  pitiless  reprobation,  it 
•would  be  found  in  compelling  him  to  cry  off  books  to 
all  eternity  $$  Grant  that  the  auctioneer  is  a  person 
of  sensibility  and  acquainted  with  good  books,  then 
his  calling  must  give  him  many  a  pang  as  he  ob- 
serves the  ignorance  and  carelessness  of  his  audience. 
It  is  better  and  more  fitting  that  he  should  know  little 
of  his  wares.  He  ought  to  be  well  paid  for  his  work, 
and  he  is — no  man  gets  so  much  for  mere  talk  except 
the  lawyer,  and  perhaps  not  even  he.  I  do  not  so 
much  complain  of  his  favoritism.  When  there  is 
something  especially  desirable  going,  I  frequently 
fail  to  catch  his  eye,  and  my  rival  gets  the  prize  ^> 
But  in  this  he  is  no  worse  than  the  Speaker.  On  the 
other  hand  he  sometimes  loads  me  up  with  a  thing 
that  I  do  not  want,  and  in  possession  of  which  I 
would  be  unwilling  to  be  found  dead,  pretending  that 
I  winked  at  him — a  species  of  imposition  which  it  is 
impolitic  to  resent  for  fear  of  being  entirely  ignored. 
These  discretionary  favors  are  regarded  as  a  practical 
joke  and  must  not  be  declined^  But  what  I  do  com- 
plain of  is  his  commercial  stolidity,  surpassing  that 
of  Charles  Surface  when  he  sold  the  portraits  of  his 
ancestors.  The  "  bete  noir  "  of  the  book  trade  is 


74 


THE   STOLID   AUCTIONEER. 

|ET  not  a  sad  ghost 

From  the  scribbling  host 
Revisit  this  workaday  sphere  ; 
He'll  find  in  the  sequel 
All  talents  are  equal 
When  they  come  to  the  auctioneer. 

Not  a  whit  cares  he 

What  the  book  may  be, 
Whether  missal  with  glorious  show, 

A  folio  Shakespeare, 

Or  an  Elzevir, 
Or  a  Tupper,  or  E.  P.  Roe. 

Without  any  qualms 

He  knocks  down  the  Psalms, 
Or  the  chaste  Imitatio, 

And  takes  the  same  pains 

To  enhance  his  gains 
With  a  ribald  Boccaccio. 

He  rattles  them  off, 

Not  stopping  to  cough, 
He  shows  no  distinction  of  person ; 

One  minute's  enough 

For  similar  stuff 
Like  Shelley  and  Ossian  Macpherson. 

A  Paradise  Lost 
Is  had  for  less  cost 
Than  a  bulky  "  fifteener"  in  Greek, 

75 


And  Addison's  prose 
Quite  frequently  goes 
t&orm  For  a  tenth  of  a  worthless  "  unique." 

This  formula  stale 
Of  his  will  avail 

For  an  epitaph  meet  for  his  rank, 
When  dropping  his  gavel 
He  falls  in  the  gravel, 
"  Do  I  hear  nothing  more  ? — gone — to — ? 

I  speak  feelingly,  but  I  think  it  is  pardonable.  I  once 
went  through  an  auction  sale  of  my  own  books,  and 
while  I  lost  money  on  volumes  on  which  I  had  be- 
stowed much  thought,  labor  and  expense,  I  made  a 
profit  on  Gibbon's  "Decline  and  Fall"  in  tree-calf. 
I  do  not  complain  of  the  loss  ;  what  I  was  mor- 
tified by  was  the  profit.  But  the  auctioneer 
was  not  at  all  abashed;  in  fact  he  seemed 
rather  pleased,  and  apparently  re- 
garded  it  as   a  feather  in  his 
cap.  I  have  always  suspect- 
ed that  the  shameless 
purchaser  was  Si- 
las Wegg. 


XI. 
THE  BOOKSELLER.  (£008; 

ONSIDERING  his  importance 
,in  modern  civilization,  it  is  sin- 
'gular  that  so  little  has  been  re- 
corded of  the  Bookseller  in  liter- 
ature. Shakespeare  has  a  great 
'deal  to  say  of  books  of  various 
kinds,  but  not  a  word,  I  believe, 
of  the  Bookseller.  It  is  true  that 
Ursa   Major  gave    a    mitigated 
growl  of  applause  to  the  booksellers,  if  I  recollect 
my  Boswell  right,  and  he  condescended  to  write  a 
life  of  Cave,  but  bookseller  in  his  view  meant  publish- 
er. It  is  true  that  Charles  Knight  wrote  a  book  enti- 
tled "  Shadows  of  the  Old  Booksellers,"  but  here  too 
the  characters  were  mainly  publishers,  and  his  ac- 
count of  them  is  indeed  shadowy.  The  chief  thing 
that  I  recall  about  any  of  the  booksellers  thus  cele- 
brated is   that  Tom  Davies  had  "a  pretty  wife," 
which  is  probably  the  reason  why  Doctor  Johnson 
thought  Tom  would  better  have  stuck  to  the  stage.  So 
far  as  I  know,  the  most  vivid  pen-pictures  of  book- 
sellers are  those  depicting  the  humble  members  of 
the  craft,  the  curb-stone  venders  a$b  They  are  much 
more  picturesque  than  their  more  affluent  brethren 
who  are  used  to  the  luxury  of  a  roof. 
Rummaging  over  the  contents  of  an  old  stall,  at  a 
half  book,  half  old  iron  shop  in  Ninety-four  alley, 

77 


€9* 


ONSIEUR  UZANNE,  who  has  $ 
reated  of  the  elegancies  of  the  Fan, 
the  Muff,  and  the  Umbrella,  has  more 
recently  given  the  world  a  quite 
unique  series  of  studies  among  the 
bookstalls  and  the  quays  of  Paris — 
"  The  Book  Hunter  in  Paris  "—and  this  too  one  finds 
more  entertaining  than  any  account  of  Quaritch's 
or  Putnam's  shop  would  be  MM* 
I  must  bear  witness  to  the  honesty  and  liberality  of 
booksellers.  When  one  considers  the  hundreds  of 
catalogues  from  which  he  has  ordered  books  at  a 
venture,  even  from  across  the  ocean,  and  how  sel- 
dom he  has  been  misled  or  disappointed  in  the  re- 
leading  from  Wardour  street  to  Soho,  yesterday,  I 
lit  upon  a  ragged  duodecimo,  which  has  been  the 
strange  delight  of  my  infancy ;  the  price  demanded 
was  sixpence,  which  the  owner  (a  little  squab  duo- 
decimo of  a  character  himself )  enforced  with  the  as- 
surance that  his  own  mother  should  not  have  it  for 
a  farthing  less.  On  my  demurring  to  this  extraordi- 
nary assertion,  the  dirty  little  vender  reinforced  his 
assertion  with  a  sort  of  oath,  which  seemed  more 
than  the  occasion  demanded.  "  And  now,"  said  he, 
"  I  have  put  my  soul  to  it."  Pressed  by  so  solemn  an 
asseveration,  I  could  no  longer  resist  a  demand 
which  seemed  to  set  me,  however  unworthy,  upon 
a  level  with  his  nearest  relations ;  and  depositing  a 
tester,  I  bore  away  the  battered  prize  in  triumph. 

— Essays  of  Elia. 
78 


suit,  one  cannot  subscribe  to  a  belief  in  the  dogma 
of  total  depravity.  I  remember  some  of  my  book- 
sellers  with  positive  affection.  They  were  such  self- 
denying  men  to  consent  to  part  with  their  treasures 
at  any  price  e$s  And  as  a  rule  they  are  far  more  care- 
less than  ordinary  merchants  about  getting  or  secur- 
ing their  pay  £jb  To  be  sure  it  is  rather  ignoble  for  the 
painter  of  a  picture,  or  the  chiseller  of  a  statue,  or 
the  vender  of  a  fine  book,  to  affect  the  acuteness  of 
tradesmen  in  the  matter  of  compensation.  The  ex- 
cellent bookseller  takes  it  for  granted,  if  he  stoops  to 
think  about  it,  that  if  a  man  orders  a  Caxton  or  a 
Grolier  he  will  pay  for  it,  at  his  convenience.  It  was 
this  unthinking  liberality  which  led  a  New  York 
bookseller  to  give  credit  to  a  distinguished  person — 
afterwards  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency — to  a  con- 
siderable amount,  and  to  let  the  account  stand  until 
it  was  outlawed,  and  his  sensibilities  were  greviously 
shocked,  when  being  compelled  to  sue  for  his  due, 
his  debtor  pleaded  the  statute  of  limitations!  His 
faith  was  not  restored  even  when  the  acute  buyer 
left  a  great  sum  of  money  by  his  will  to  found  a  pub- 
lic library,  and  the  legacy  failed  through  informality. 
HAVE  only  one  complaint  to  make  against 
ooksellers.  They  should  teach  their  clerks  to 
ecognize  The  Book- Worm  at  a  glance  ^  It  is 
ery  annoying,  when  I  go  browsing  around  a 
ook-shop,  to  have  an  attendant  come  up  and 
sk  me,  who  have  bought  books  for  thirty 
years,  if  he  can  "show  me  anything" — just  as  if  I 

79 


wanted  to  see  anything  in  particular — or  if  "  anybody 
flBoofc  ^  waiting  on  me  "—when  all  I  desire  is  to  be  let 
&  alone.  Some  booksellers,  I  am  convinced,  have  this 

art  of  recognition,  for  they  let  me  alone,  and  I  make 
it  a  rule  always  to  buy  something  of  them,  but  never 
when  their  employees  are  so  annoyingly  attentive. 
I  do  not  object  to  being  watched;  it  is  only  the  im- 
plication that  I  need  any  assistance  that  offends  me. 
It  is  easy  to  recognize  the  Book- Worm  at  a  glance 
by  the  care  with  which  he  handles  the  rare  books 
and  the  indifference  with  which  he  passes  the  stand- 
ard authors  in  holiday  bindings. 

NCE  I  had  a  bookseller  who  had  a 
talent  for  drawing,  which  he  used  to 
exercise  occasionally  on  the  exterior 
an  express  package  of  books.  One 
of  these  wrappings  I  have  preserved, 
exhibiting  a  pen-and-ink  drawing  of 
a  war-ship  firing  a  big  gun  at  a  few 
small  birds.  Perhaps  this  was  satirically  intended  to 
denote  the  pains  and  time  he  had  expended  on  so 
small  a  sale.  But  I  will  now  immortalize  him  **^£ 
The  most  striking  picture  of  a  bookseller  that  I  recall 
in  all  literature  is  one  drawn  by  M.  Uzanne,  in  the 
charming  book  mentioned  above,  which  I  will  en- 
deavor to  transmute  and  transmit  under  the  title  of 

THE   PROPHETIC   BOOK. 

|A  CROIX,"  said  the  Emperor,  "cease  to  be- 
guile ; 

These  bookstalls  must  go  from  my  bridges  and  quays; 
80 


No  longer  shall  tradesmen  my  city  defile 

With  mouldering  hideous  scarecrows  like  these." 

While  walking  that  night  with  the  bibliophile, 

On  the  Quai  Malaquais  by  the  Rue  de  Saints  Peres, 

The  Emperor  saw,  with  satirical  smile, 

Enkindling  his  stove,  in  the  chill  evening  air, 

With  leaves  which  he  tore  from  a  tome  by  his  side, 
A  bookseller  ancient,  with  tremulous  hands ; 

And  laying  aside  his  imperial  pride, 

"  What  book  are  you  burning?"  the  Emperor  de- 
mands. 

For  answer  Pere  Foy  handed  over  the  book, 
And  there  as  the  headlines  saluted  his  glance, 

Napoleon  read,  with  a  stupefied  look, 

"  Account    of   the    Conquests    and   Victories    of 
France." 

The  dreamer  imperial  swallowed  his  ire ; 

Pere  Foy  still  remained  at  his  musty  old  stand, 
Till  France  was  environed  by  sword  and  by  fire, 

And  Germans  like  locusts  devoured  the  land. 

HJBTLESS  the  occupation  of  bookseller 
generally  regarded  as  a  very  pleasant  as 
rell  as  a  refined  one.  But  there  is  another 
(side,  in  the  estimation  of  a  true  Book- 
Worm,  and  it  is  not  agreeable  to  him  to  contemplate 
the  life  of 

81 


THE  BOOK-SELLER. 

E  STANDS  surrounded  by  rare  tomes 
Which  find  with  him  their  transient  homes, 

He  knows  their  fragrant  covers ; 
He  keeps  them  but  a  week  or  two, 
Surrenders  then  their  charming  view 
To  bibliomaniac  lovers. 

An  enviable  man,  you  say, 

To  own  such  wares  if  but  a  day, 

And  handle,  see  and  smell ; 
But  all  the  time  his  spirit  shrinks, 
As  wandering  through  his  shop  he  thinks 

He  only  keeps  to  sell. 

The  man  who  buys  from  him  retains 
His  purchase  long  as  life  remains, 

And  then  he  doesn't  mind 
If  his  unbookish  eager  heirs, 
Administering  his  affairs, 

Shall  throw  them  to  the  wind. 

Or  if  in  life  he  sells,  in  sooth, 
'Tis  parting  with  a  single  tooth, 

A  momentary  pain ; 
Booksellers,  like  Sir  Walter's  Jew, 
Must  this  keen  suffering  renew, 

Again  and  yet  again. 

And  so  we  need  not  envy  him 

Who  sells  us  books,  for  stark  and  grim 

82 


Remains  this  torture  deep. 
This  Universalistic  hell — 
Throughout  this  life  he's  bound  to  sell ; 

He  has,  but  cannot  keep. 


Worm 


I 

I 

* 

* 

* 


3&00&  THE   PUBLIC   LIBRARIAN. 

RE  is  one  species  of  the 
took-  Worm   which  is  more 
Ipitiable  than  the  Bookseller, 
,and  that  is  the  Public  Libra- 
•ian,  especially  of  a  circulating 
[library.  He  is  condemned  to 
live  among  great   collections 
of  books  and  exhibit  them  to 
Ithe  curious  public,  and  to  be 

debarred  from  any  proprietorship  in  them,  even 
temporary.  But  the  greater  part  this  does  not  grieve 
a  true  Book-  Worm,  for  he  would  scorn  ownership 
of  a  vast  majority  of  the  books  which  he  shows,  but 
on  the  comparatively  rare  occasions  when  he  is 
called  on  to  produce  a  real  book  (in  the  sense  of 
Bibliomania),  he  must  be  saddened  by  the  reflection 
that  it  is  not  his  own,  and  that  the  inspection  of  it  is 
demanded  of  him  as  a  matter  of  right  $«  I  have  often 
observed  the  ill  concealed  reluctance  with  which  the 
librarian  complies  with  such  a  request  ;  how  he  looks 
at  the  demandant  with  a  degree  of  surprise,  and  then 
produces  the  key  of  the  repository  where  the  treas- 
ure is  kept  under  guard,  and  heaving  a  sigh  delivers 
the  volume  with  a  grudging  hand.  It  was  this  char- 
acteristic which  led  me  in  my  youth,  before  I  had 
been  inducted  into  the  delights  of  Bibliomania  and 
had  learned  to  appreciate  the  feelings  of  a  librarian, 

84 


to  define  him  as  one  who  conceives  it  to  be  his  duty  -j,« 
to  prevent  the  public  from  seeing  the  books.  I  owe  a 
good  old  librarian  an  apology  for  having  said  this  of 
him,  and  hereby  offer  my  excuses  to  one  whose 
honorable  name  is  recorded  in  the  Book  of  Life  dfb 
Much  is  to  be  forgiven  to  the  man  who  loves  books, 
and  yet  is  doomed  to  deal  out  books  that  perish  in 
the  using,  which  no  human  being  would  ever  read  a 
second  time  nor  "be  found  dead  with."  These  are 
the  true  tests  of  a  good  book,  especially  the  last. 
Shelley  died  with  a  little  /Eschylus  on  his  person, 
which  the  cruel  waves  spared,  and  when  Tennyson 
fell  asleep  it  was  with  a  Shakespeare,  open  at  "Cymbe- 
line."  One  may  be  excused  for  reading  a  good  deal 
that  he  never  would  re-read,  but  not  for  owning  it, 
nor  for  owning  a  good  deal  which  he  would  feel 
ashamed  to  have  for  his  last  earthly  companion.  But 
now  for  my  tribute  to 

THE   PUBLIC  LIBRARIAN. 

[IS  books  extend  on  every  side, 
And  up  and  down  the  vistas  wide 

His  eye  can  take  them  in ; 
He  does  not  love  these  books  at  all, 
Their  usefulness  in  big  and  small 

He  counts  as  but  a  sin. 

And  all  day  long  he  stands  to  serve 
The  public  with  an  aching  nerve  ; 
He  views  them  with  disdain — 

8s 


The  student  with  his  huge  round  glasses, 
The  maiden  fresh  from  high  school  classes, 

Worm  with  aPathetic  brain ; 

The  sentimental  woman  lorn, 
The  farmer  recent  from  his  corn, 

The  boy  who  thirsts  for  fun, 
The  graybeard  with  a  patent-right, 
The  pedagogue  of  school  at  night, 

The  fiction-gulping  one. 

They  ask  for  histories,  reports, 
Accounts  of  turf  and  prize-ring  sports, 

The  census  of  the  nation ; 
Philosophy  and  science  too, 
The  fresh  romances  not  a  few, 

Also  "Degeneration." 

"  They  call  these  books ! "  he  said,  and  throws 
Them  down  in  careless  heaps  and  rows 

Before  the  ticket-holder ; 
He'd  like  to  cast  them  at  his  head, 
He  wishes  they  might  strike  him  dead, 
And  with  the  reader  moulder. 

But  now  as  for  the  shrine  of  saint 

He  seeks  a  spot  whence  sweet  and  faint 

A  leathery  smell  exudes, 
And  there  behind  the  gilded  wires 
For  some  loved  rarity  inquires 

Which  common  gaze  eludes. 
86 


He  wishes  Omar  would  return 
That  vulgar  mob  of  books  to  burn, 

While  he,  like  Virgil's  hero,  TQ00tm 

"Would  shoulder  off  this  precious  case 
To  some  secluded  private  place 

With  temperature  at  zero. 

And  there  in  that  Seraglio 

Of  books  not  kept  for  public  show, 

He'd  feast  his  glowing  eyes, 
Forgetting  that  these  beauties  rare, 
Morocco-clad  and  passing  fair, 

Are  but  the  Sultan's  prize. 

But  then  a  tantalizing  sense 
Invades  expectancy  intense, 

And  with  extorted  moan, 
"  Unhappy  man !  "  he  sighs,  "  condemned 
To  show  such  treasure  and  to  lend — 

I  keep,  but  cannot  own !  " 


XIII. 
DOES  BOOK  COLLECTING  PAY. 

E  NOW  come  to  the  sordid  but 
serious  consideration  whether 
books  are  a  "good  investment" 
in  the  financial  sense  d§b  The 
mind  of  every  true  Book- Worm 
should  revolt  from  this  ques- 
tion, for  none  except  a  book- 
seller is  pardonable  for  buying 
books  with  the  design  of  selling  them.  Booksellers 
are  a  necessary  evil,  as  purveyors  for  the  Book- 
Worm  £ja  I  regard  them  as  the  old  woman  regarded 
the  thirty-nine  articles  of  faith ;  when  inquired  of  by 
her  bishop  what  she  thought  of  them,  she  said,  "  I 
don't  know  as  I've  anything  against  them."  So  I  don't 
know  that  I  have  anything  against  booksellers,  al- 
though I  must  concede  that  they  generally  have 
something  against  me.  As  no  well  regulated  man 
ever  grudges  expense  on  the  house  that  forms  his 
home,  or  on  its  adornment,  and  rarely  cares  or  even 
reflects  whether  he  can  get  his  money  back,  so  it  is 
with  the  true  bibliomaniac  A  He  never  intends  to 
part  with  his  books  any  more  than  with  his  home- 
stead. Then  again  the  use  and  enjoyment  of  books 
ought  to  count  for  something  like  interest  on  the 
capital  invested.  Many  times,  directly  or  indirectly, 
the  use  of  a  library  is  worth  even  more  than  the  in- 
terest on  the  outlay.  It  is  singular  how  expenditure 
88 


in  books  is  regarded  as  an  extravagance  by  the  busi- 
ness  world.  One  may  spend  the  price  of  a  fine  library 
in  fast  or  showy  horses,  or  in  travel,  or  in  gluttony,  TEorm 
or  in  stock  speculations  eventuating  on  the  wrong 
side  of  his  ledger,  and  the  money-grubbing  community 
think  none  the  worse  of  him  A  But  let  him  expend 
annually  a  few  thousands  in  books,  and  these  sons 
of  Mammon  pull  long  faces,  wag  their  shallow  heads, 
and  sneeringly  observe,  "  screw  loose  somewhere," 
"  never  get  half  what  he  has  paid  for  them,"  "  too 
much  of  a  Book-Worm  to  be  a  sharp  business  man." 
A  man  who  boldly  bets  on  stocks  in  Wall  Street  is  a 
gallant  fellow,  forsooth,  and  excites  the  admiration 
of  the  business  community  (especially  of  those  who 
thrive  on  his  losses)  even  when  he  "  comes  out  at 
the  little  end  of  the  horn."  As  Ruskin  observes,  we 
frequently  hear  of  a  bibliomaniac,  never  of  a  horse- 
maniac  ^t  It  is  said  there  is  a  private  stable  in  Syra- 
cuse, New  York,  which  has  cost  several  hundred 
thousand  dollars.  The  owner  is  regarded  as  perfect- 
ly sane  and  the  building  is  viewed  with  great  pride 
by  the  public,  but  if  the  owner  had  expended  as  much 
on  a  private  library  his  neighbors  would  have  thought 
him  a  lunatic.  If  a  man  in  business  wants  to  excite 
the  suspicion  of  the  sleek  gentlemen  who  sit  around 
the  discount  board  with  him,  or  yell  like  lunatics  at 
the  stock  exchange  with  him,  or  talk  with  him  about 
the  tariff  or  free  silver,  or  any  other  subject  on  which 
no  two  men  ever  agree  unless  it  is  for  their  interest, 
let  it  leak  out  that  he  has  put  a  few  thousand  dollars 

89 


into  a  Mazarine  Bible,  or  a  Caxton,  or  a  first  folio 
Shakespeare  or  some  other  rare  book  £j!i  No  matter  if 
ke  can  afford  i*»  most  of  his  associates  regard  him 
as  they  do  a  Bedlamite  who  goes  about  collecting 
straws.  Fortunate  is  he  if  his  wife  does  not  privately 
call  on  the  family  attorney  and  advise  with  him 
about  putting  a  committee  over  the  poor  man. 

UT  if  we  must  regard  book-buying  in  a 
money  sense,  and  were  to  admit  that  books 
never  sell  for  as  much  as  they  cost,  it  is  no 
worse  in  respect  to  books  than  in  respect  to 
any  other  species  of  personal  property.,  What  chattel 
is  there  for  which  the  buyer  can  get  as  much  as  he 
paid,  even  the  next  day?  When  it  is  proposed  to 
transform  the  seller  himself  into  the  buyer  of  the 
same  article,  we  find  that  the  bull  of  yesterday  is 
converted  into  the  bear  of  to-day.  Circumstances 
alter  cases.  I  have  bought  a  good  many  books  and 
"  objects  of  bigotry  and  virtue,"  and  have  sold  some, 
and  the  nearest  I  ever  came  to  getting  as  much 
as  I  paid  was  in  the  case  of  a  rare  print,  the  seller  of 
which,  after  the  lapse  of  several  years,  solicited  me 
to  let  him  have  it  again,  at  exactly  what  I  paid  for  it, 
in  order  that  he  might  sell  it  to  some  one  else  at  an 
advance.  I  declined  his  offer  with  profuse  thanks, 
and  keep  the  picture  as  a  curiosity  •*£& 
So  I  should  say,  as  a  rule,  that  books  are  not  a  good 
financial  investment  in  the  business  sense,  and  speak- 
ing of  most  books  and  most  buyers  dpi  Give  a  man 
the  same  experience  in  buying  books  that  renders 
90 


him  expert  in  buying  other  personal  property,  the 
mere  gross  objects  of  trade,  and  let  him  set  out  with 
the  purpose  of  accumulating  a  library  that  shall 
be  a  remunerative  financial  investment,  and  he  may 
succeed,  indeed,  has  often  succeeded,  certainly  to 
the  extent  of  getting  back  his  outlay  with  interest, 
and  sometimes  making  a  handsome  profit.  But  this 
needs  experience  ^b  Just  as  one  must  build  at  least 
two  houses  before  he  can  exactly  suit  himself,  so  he 
must  collect  two  libraries  before  he  can  get  one  that 
will  prove  a  fair  investment  in  the  vulgar  sense  of 
trade. 

DARE  say  that  one  will  frequently  pay  more 
for  a  fine  microscope  or  telescope  than  he  can 
ever  obtain  for  it  if  he  desires  or  is  pressed  to 
sell  it,  but  who  would  or  should  stop  to  think 
of  that  ?  The  power  of  prying  into  the  myster- 
ies of  the  earth  and  the  wonders  of  the  heavens 
should  raise  one's  thoughts  above  such  petty  con- 
siderations. So  it  should  be  in  buying  that  which  en- 
ables one  to  converse  with  Shakespeare  or  Milton  or 
scan  the  works  of  Raphael  or  Durer.  When  the  pio- 
neer on  the  western  plains  purchases  an  expensive 
rifle  he  does  not  inquire  whether  he  can  sell  it  for 
what  it  costs  ;  his  purpose  is  to  defend  his  house 
against  Indians  and  other  wild  beasts.  So  the  true 
book-buyer  buys  books  to  fight  weariness,  disgust, 
sorrow  and  despair ;  to  loose  himself  from  the  world 
and  forget  time  and  all  its  limitations  and  beset- 
ments.  In  this  view  they  never  cost  too  much.  And 


so  when  asked  if  book-collecting  pays,  I  retort  by 
asking,  does  piety  pay?  "Honesty  is  the  best 
policy  "  is  the  meanest  of  maxims.  Honesty 
ought  to  be  a  principle  and  not  a  policy; 
and  book-collecting  ought  to  be  a 
means  of  education,  refine- 
ment and  enjoyment, 
and  not  a  mode  of 
financial    in- 
vestment. 


• 


XIV. 
THE  BOOK-WORM'S  FAULTS. 

[HIS  is  not  a  case  of  "  Snakes  in  Ice- 
jland,"  for  the  Book- Worm  has  faults. 
)ne  of  his  faults  is  his  proneness  to 
igard  books  as  mere  merchandise  and 
lot  as  vehicles  of  intellectual  profit, 
that  is  to  say,  to  be  read.  Too  many 
my  books  simply  for  their  rarity  and  with 
too  little  regard  to  the  value  of  their  contents  £jt  The 
Circassian  slave-dealer  does  not  care  whether  his 
ijirls  can  talk  sense  or  not,  and  too  many  men  buy 
books  with  a  similar  disregard  to  their  capacity  for 
instructing  or  entertaining.  It  seems  to  me  that  a 
man  who  buys  books  which  he  does  not  read,  and 
especially  such  as  he  cannot  read,  merely  on  ac- 
count of  their  value  as  merchandise,  degrades  the 
noble  passion  of  bibliomania  to  the  level  of  a  trade  £? 
When  I  go  through  such  a  library  I  think  of  what 
Christ  said  to  the  traders  in  the  Temple.  Another 
fault  is  his  lack  of  independence  and  his  tendency  to 
imitate  the  recognized  leaders.  He  is  too  prone  to  buy 
certain  books  simply  because  another  has  them,  and 
thus  even  rare  collections  are  apt  to  fall  into  a  tire- 
some routine  ft  The  collector  who  has  a  hobby  and 
independence  to  ride  it  is  admirable.  Let  him  addict 
himself  to  some  particular  subject  or  era  or  "  ana," 
and  try  to  exhaust  it,  and  before  he  is  conscious  he 
will  have  accumulated  a  collection  precious  for  its 

93 


very  singularity.  It  strikes  me  that  the  best  example 
(goofb  of  this  idea  that  I  have  ever  heard  of  is  the  attempt, 
in  which  two  collectors  in  this  country  are  engaged, 
to  acquire  the  first  or  at  least  one  specimen  of  every 
one  of  the  five  hundred  fifteenth  century  printers.  If 
this  should  ever  succeed,  the  great  libraries  of  all  the 
world  would  be  eager  for  it,  and  the  undertaking  is 
sufficiently  arduous  to  last  a  lifetime. 

OMETIMES  out  of  this  fault, 
sometimes  independently  of  it, 
arises  the  fault  by  which  book 
collecting  degenerates  into  mere 
rivalry — the  vulgar  desire  of  dis- 
play and  ambition  for  a  larger 
or  rarer  or  costlier  accumulation 
than  one's  neighbor  has  A  The 

determination  not  to  be  outdone  does  not  lend  digni- 
ty or  worth  to  the  pursuit  which  would  otherwise  be 
commendable.  During  the  late  civil  war  in  this  coun- 
try the  chaplain  of  a  regiment  informed  his  colonel, 
who  was  not  a  godly  person,  that  there  was  a  hope- 
ful revival  of  religion  going  on  in  a  neighboring  and 
rival  regiment,  and  that  forty  men  had  been  convert- 
ed and  baptized.  "  Dashed  if  I  will  submit  to  that," 
said  the  swearing  colonel :  "Adjutant,  detail  fifty  men 
for  baptism  instantly!"  So  Mr.  Roe,  hearing  that 
Mr.  Doe  has  acquired  a  Caxton  or  other  rarity  of 
a  certain  height,  and  absolutely  flawless  except  that 
the  corners  of  the  last  leaf  have  been  skillfully  mend- 
ed and  that  six  leaves  are  slightly  foxed,  cannot  rest 
94 


night  or  day  for  envy,  but  is  like  the  troubled  sea  un- 
til  he  can  find  a  copy  a  sixteenth  of  an  inch  taller, 
the  corners  of  whose  leaves  are  in  their  pristine  in- 
tegrity,  and  over  whose  brilliant  surface  the  smudge 
of  the  fox  has  not  been  cast,  and  then  how  high  is 
his  exaltation!  Not  that  he  cares  anything  for  the 
book  intrinsically,  but  he  glories  in  having  beaten 
Doe  ^  Now  if  any  speaks  to  him  of  Doe's  remarka- 
ble copy,  he  can  draw  out  his  own  and  create  a  sur- 
prise in  the  bosom  of  Doe's  adherent.  The  laurels  of 
Miltiades  no  longer  deprive  him  of  rest.  He  has  over- 
come in  this  trivial  and  childish  strife  concerning  size 
and  condition,  and  he  holds  the  champion's  belt  for 
the  present.  He  not  only  feels  big  himself  but  he  has 
succeeded  in  making  Doe  feel  small,  which  is  still 
better.  I  don't  know  whether  there  will  be  any  book- 
collecting  in  Mr.  Bellamy's  Utopia,  but  if  there  is, 
it  will  not  be  disfigured  by  such  meanness,  but 
collectors  will  go  about  striving  to  induce  others  to 
accept  their  superior  copies  and  everything  will  be 
as  lovely  as  in  Heine's  heaven,  where  geese  fly 
around  ready  cooked,  and  if  one  treads  on  your  corn 
it  conveys  a  sensation  of  exquisite  delight. 

HAS  been  several  times  remarked  by 
moralists  that  human  nature  is  selfish.  One 
of  course  does  not  expect  another  to  relin- 
iquish  to  him  his  place  in  a  "  queue"  at  a 
box-office  or  his  turn  at  a  barber's  shop,  but  in  the 
noble  and  elegant  pursuit  of  book-collecting  it  would 
be  well  to  emulate  the  politeness  of  the  French  at 

95 


Fontenoy,  and  hat  in  hand  offer  our  antagonist  the 

flBoofb     first  shot  ^  But  I  believe  the  only  place  where  the 
Book- Worm  ever  does  that  is  the  auction  room. 

HE  modern  Book- Worm  is  not  the  simple 
nd  absent-minded  creature  who  went  by 
his  name  a  century  ago  or  more.  He  is  no 
cre  antiquarian,  Dryasdust  or  Dominie 
Sampson,  but  he  is  a  sharp  merchant,  or  a  relentless 
broker,  or  a  professional  railroad  wrecker,  or  a  keen 
lawyer,  or  a  busy  physician,  or  a  great  manufacturer 
— a  wide  awake  man  of  affairs,  quite  devoid  of  the 
conventional  innocency  and  credulity  which  former- 
ly made  the  name  of  Book- Worm  suggestive  of  a 
necessity  for  a  guardian  or  a  committee  in  lunacy  £« 
No  longer  does  he  inquire,  as  Becatello  inquired  of 
Alphonso,  King  of  Naples,  which  had  done  the  bet- 
ter— Poggius,  who  sold  a  Livy,  fairly  writ  in  his  own 
hand,  to  buy  a  country  home  near  Florence,  or  he, 
who  to  buy  a  Livy  had  sold  a  piece  of  land  ?  No 
longer  is  the  scale  turned  in  the  negotiation  of  a 
treaty  between  princes  by  the  weight  of  a  rare  book, 
as  when  Cosimo  dei  Medici  persuaded  King  Alphonso 

I  no  sooner  come  into  the  library,  but  I  bolt  the  door 
to  me,  excluding  lust,  ambition,  avarice,  and  all  such 
vices,  whose  nurse  is  idleness,  the  mother  of  ignor- 
ance, and  melancholy  herself,  and  in  the  very  lap  of 
eternity,  among  so  many  divine  souls,  I  take  my 
seat  with  so  lofty  a  spirit  and  sweet  content,  that  I 
pity  all  our  great  ones  and  rich  men  that  know  not 
this  happiness.  — Heinsius. 

96 


of  Naples  to  a  peace  by  sending  him  a  codex  of  Livy. 
No  longer  does  the  Book- Worm  sit  in  his  modest 
book-room,  absorbed  in  his  adored  volumes,  heed- 
less  of  the  waning  lamp  and  the  setting  star,  of  hun- 
ger and  thirst,  unmindful  of  the  scent  of  the  clover 
wafted  in  at  the  window,  deaf  to  the  hum  of  the  bees 
and  the  low  of  the  kine,  blind  to  the  glow  of  sunsets 
and  the  soft  contour  of  the  blue  hills,  and  the  bil- 
lowy swaying  of  the  wheat  field  before  the  gentle 
breath  of  the  south  ^  No  longer  can  it  be  said  that 

THE  BOOK-WORM  DOES  NOT  CARE  FOR  NATURE. 

FEEL  no  need  of  nature's  flowers — 
Of  flowers  of  rhetoric  I  have  store ; 
I  do  not  miss  the  balmy  showers — 
When  books  are  dry  I  o'er  them  pore. 

Why  should  I  sit  upon  a  stile 
And  cause  my  aged  bones  to  ache, 

When  I  can  all  the  hours  beguile 
With  any  style  that  I  would  take  ? 

Why  should  I  haunt  a  purling  stream, 

Or  fish  in  miasmatic  brook  ? 
O'er  Euclid's  angles  I  can  dream, 

And  recreation  find  in  Hook. 

Why  should  I  jolt  upon  a  horse 
And  after  wretched  vermin  roam, 

When  I  can  choose  an  easier  course 
With  Fox  and  Hare  and  Hunt  at  home  ? 

97 


Why  should  I  scratch  my  precious  skin 
gjoofc  By  crawling  through  a  hawthorne  hedge, 

When  Hawthorne,  raking  up  my  sin, 
Stands  tempting  on  the  nearest  ledge  ? 

No  need  that  I  should  take  the  trouble 
To  go  abroad  to  walk  or  ride, 

For  I  can  sit  at  home  and  double 
Quite  up  with  pain  from  Akenside. 

|HE  modern  Book- Worm  deals  in  sums  of 
;ix  figures  ;  he  keeps  an  agent  "  on  the 
>ther  side;"  he  cables  his  demands  and 
ds  decisions  ;  his  name  flutters  the  dove- 
cotes in  the  auction-room  ;  to  him  is  proffered  the 
first  chance  at  a  rarity  worth  a  King's  ransom ;  too 
busy  to  potter  in  person  with  such  a  trifle  as  the 
purchase  of  a  Mazarine  Bible,  he  hires  others  to  do 
the  hunting  and  he  merely  receives  the  game ;  the 
tiger  skin  and  the  elephant's  tusk  are  laid  at  his  feet 
to  order,  but  he  misses  all  the  joy  and  ardor  of  the 
hunt.  How  different  is  all  this  from  Sir  Thomas  Ur- 
quhart's  account  of  his  own  library,  of  which  he 
says  :  "  There  were  not  three  works  therein  which 
were  not  of  mine  own  purchase,  and  all  of  them  to- 
gether, in  the  order  wherein  I  had  ranked  them,  com- 
piled like  to  a  complete  nosegay  of  flowers,  which 
in  my  travels  I  had  gathered  out  of  the  gardens  of 
sixteen  several  kingdoms."  v€^ 
Another  fault  of  the  Book-Worm  is  the  affectation 
98 


* 

« 


of  collecting  books  on  subjects  in  which  he  takes  no 
practical  interest,  simply  because  it  is  the  fashion  or 
the  books  are  intrinsically  beautiful.  Many  a  man  has 
a  fine  collection  on  Angling,  for  example,  who  hardly 
knows  how  to  put  a  worm  on  a  hook,  much  less  at- 
tach a  fly  s>$i  I  fear  I  am  one  of  these  hypocritical 
creatures,  for  this  is 

HOW  I  QO  A-FISHING. 

jIS  sweet  to  sit  in  shady  nook, 

Or  wade  in  rapid  crystal  brook, 
Impervious  in  rubber  boots, 
And  wary  of  the  slippery  roots, 
To  snare  the  swift  evasive  trout 
Or  eke  the  sauntering  horn-pout ; 
Or  in  the  cold  Canadian  river 
To  see  the  glorious  salmon  quiver, 
And  them  with  tempting  hook  inveigle, 
Fit  viand  for  a  table  regal ; 
Or  after  an  exciting  bout 
To  snatch  the  pike  with  sharpened  snout ; 
Or  with  some  patient  ass  to  row 
To  troll  for  bass  with  motion  slow. 
Oh!  joy  supreme  when  they  appear 
Splashing  above  the  water  clear, 
And  drawn  reluctantly  to  land 
Lie  gasping  on  the  yellow  sand ! 
But  sweeter  far  to  read  the  books 
That  treat  of  flies  and  worms  and  hooks, 
From  Pickering's  monumental  page, 

99 


- 

. 

'     * 

* 

« 

"         .    v  * 

i 

(Late  rivalled  by  the  rare  Dean  Sage), 
And  Major's  elder  issues  neat, 
To  Burnand's  funny  "  Incompleat." 
I  love  their  figures  quaint  and  queer, 
"Which  on  the  inviting  page  appear, 
From  those  of  good  Dame  Juliana, 
Who  lifts  a  fish  and  cries  hosanna, 
To  those  of  Stothard,  graceful  Quaker, 
Of  fishy  art  supremest  maker, 
Whose  fisherman,  so  dry  and  neat, 
Would  never  soil  a  parlor  seat. 
I  love  them  all,  the  books  on  angling, 
And  far  from  cares  and  business  jangling, 
Ensconced  in  cosy  chimney-corner, 
Like  the  traditional  Jack  Horner, 
I  read  from  Walton  down  to  Lang, 
And  hum  that  song  the  Milkmaid  sang. 
I  get  not  tired  nor  wet  nor  cross, 
Nor  suffer  monetary  loss — 
If  fish  are  shy  and  will  not  bite, 
And  shun  the  snare  laid  in  their  sight — 
In  order  home  at  night  to  bring 
A  fraudulent,  deceitful  string, 
And  thus  escape  the  merry  jeers 
Of  heartless  piscatory  peers ; 
Nor  have  to  listen  to  the  lying 
Of  fishermen  while  fish  are  frying, 
"Who  boast  of  draughts  miraculous 
Which  prove  too  large  a  draught  on  us. 
I  spare  the  rod,  and  rods  don't  break ; 
100 


'     • 

.*  ' 

* .     * 

I 

* 

Nor  fish  in  sight  the  hook  forsake ; 

My  lines  ne'er  snap  like  corset  laces  ;  Qgoofb 

My  lines  are  fallen  in  pleasant  places.  Worm 

And  so  in  sage  experience  ripe, 

My  fishery  is  but  a  type. 


IOX 


POVERTY  AS  A  MEANS  OF  ENJOYMENT  IN 
COLLECTING. 

OOR  collectors  are  not  only  not  at 
a  disadvantage  in  enjoyment,  but 
they  have  a  positive  advantage 
over  affluent  rivals.  If  I  were  rich, 
probably  I  should  not  throw  my 
money  away  just  to  experience 
this  superiority,  but  it  nevertheless  exists.  I  do  not 
envy,  but  I  commiserate  my  brother  collector  who 
has  plenty  of  money.  He  who  only  has  to  draw  his 
check  to  obtain  his  desire  fails  to  reach  the  keenest 
bliss  of  the  pursuit.  If  diamonds  were  as  common 
as  cobble  stones  there  would  be  no  delight  in  picking 
them  up  **$<£& 

To  constitute  a  bibliomaniac  in  the  true  sense,  the 
love  of  books  must  combine  with  a  certain  limitation 
of  means  for  the  gratification  of  the  appetite  $i  The 
consciousness  of  some  extravagance  must  be  always 
present  in  his  mind ;  there  must  be  a  sense  of  sacri- 
fice in  the  attainment;  in  a  rich  man  the  disease 
cannot  exist ;  he  cannot  enter  the  kingdom  of  the 
Bibliomaniac's  heaven.  There  is  the  same  difference 
of  sensation  between  the  acquirement  of  books  by  a 
wealthy  man  and  by  him  of  slender  purse,  that 
there  is  between  the  taking  of  fish  in  a  net  and  the 
successful  result  of  a  long  angling  pursuit  after  one 
especially  fat  and  evasive  trout.  When  a  prince  kills 
102 


his  preserved  game,  with  keepers  to  raise  it  for  him 
and  to  hand  him  guns  ready  loaded,  so  that  all  he 
has  to  do  is  to  squint  and  pull  the  trigger,  this  is  not  ^^ 
hunting ;  it  is  mere  vulgar  butchery  £fb  What  knows 
he  of  the  joys  of  the  tramper  in  the  forest,  who 
stalks  the  deer,  or  scares  up  smaller  game,  singly, 
and  has  to  work  hard  for  his  bag  ?  We  read  in  Dib- 
din's  sumptuous  pages  of  the  celebrated  contest  be- 
tween the  Duke  of  Devonshire  and  the  Marquis  of 
Blandford  for  the  possession  of  the  Valdarfar  De- 
cameron ;  we  read  with  admiration,  but  we  also  read 
of  the  immortal  battle  of  Elia  with  the  little  squab- 
keeper  of  the  old  book-stall  in  Ninety-four  alley,  over 
the  ownership  of  a  ragged  duodecimo  for  a  sixpence; 
we  read  with  affection  fy  So  we  read  Leigh  Hunt's 
confession  that  when  he  "cut  open  a  new  catalogue 
of  old  books,  and  put  crosses  against  dozens  of  vol- 
umes in  the  list,  out  of  the  pure  imagination  of  buying 
them,  the  possibility  being  out  of  the  question."  ^ 
Poverty  hath  her  victories  no  less  renowned  than 
wealth.  To  haunt  the  book-stores,  there  to  see  a  long- 
desired  work  in  luxurious  and  tempting  style,  reluc- 
tantly to  abandon  it  for  the  present  on  account  of  the 
price ;  to  go  home  and  dream  about  it,  to  wonder, 
for  a  year,  and  perchance  longer,  whether  it  will 
ever  again  greet  your  eyes ;  to  conjecture  what  act 
of  desperation  you  might  in  heat  of  passion  commit 
toward  some  more  affluent  man  in  whose  possession 
you  should  thereafter  find  it ;  to  see  it  turn  up  again 
in  another  book-shop,  its  charms  slightly  faded,  but 

103 


g 

yet  mellowed  by  age,  like  those  of  your  first  love, 
met  in  later  life — with  this  difference,  however,  that 
fy          whereas  you  crave  those  of  the  book  more  than  ever, 
you  are  generally  quite  satisfied  with  yourself  for 
not  having,  through  the  greenness  of  youth,  yielded 
untimely  to  those  of  the  lady;  to  ask  with  assumed 
indifference  the  price,  and  learn  with  ill-dissembled 
joy  that  it  is  now  within  your  means;  to  say  you'll 
take  it;  to  place  it  beneath  your  arm,  and  pay  for  it 
(or  more  generally  order  it  "  charged");  to  go  forth 
from  that  room  with  feelings  akin  to  those  of  Ulysses 
when  he  brought  away  the  Palladium  from  Troy ;  to 
keep  a  watchful  eye  on  the  parcel  in  the  railway 
coach  on  your  way  home,  or  to  gloat  over  the  treas- 
ures of  its  pages,  and  wonder  if  the  other  passengers 
have  any  suspicion  of  your  good  fortune;  and  finally 
to  place  the  volume  on  your  shelf,  and  thenceforth 
to  call  it  your  own — this  is  indeed  a  pleasure 
denied  to  the  affluent,  so  keen  as  to  be  akin 
to  pain,  and  only  marred  by  the  palling 
which  always  follows  possession 
and  the  presentation  of  your 
book  -  seller's    account 
three    months 
afterwards. 


104 


. 


*  . 


XVI. 
THE  ARRANGEMENT  OF  BOOKS. 

ERE  was  a  time  when  I  loved 
o  see  my  books  arranged  with  a 
iew  to  uniformity  of  height  and 
armony  of  color  without  respect 
o  subjects.  That  time  I  regard  as 
my  vealy  period  s&  That  was  the 
time  when  we  admired  "Somnam- 
bula,"  and  when  the  housewife 
used  to  have  all  the  pictures  hung 
on  the  same  level,  and  to  buy  vases  in  pairs  exactly 
alike  and  put  them  on  either  side  of  the  parlor  clock, 
which  was  generally  surmounted  by  a  prancing  Sara- 
cen or  a  weaving  Penelope.  Granting  that  a  collec- 
tion is  not  extensive  enough  to  demand  a  strict  ar- 
rangement by  subjects,  I  like  to  see  a  little  artistic 
confusion — high  and  low  together  here  and  there,  like 
a  democratic  community  ;  now  and  then  some  giants 
laid  down  on  their  sides  to  rest ;  the  shelves  not  uni- 
formly filled  out  as  if  the  owner  never  expected  to 
buy  any  more,  and  alongside  a  dainty  Angler  a  book 
in  red  or  blue  cloth  with  a  white  label — just  as  chil- 
dred  in  velvet  and  furs  sit  next  a  newsboy,  or  a  little 
girl  in  calico  with  a  pigtail  at  Sunday  School,  or  as 
beggars  and  princes  kneel  side  by  side  on  the  cathedral 
pavement.  It  is  good  to  have  these  "swell"  books  rub 
up  against  the  commoners,  which  though  not  so  ele- 
gant are  frequently  a  great  deal  brig  hter.  At  a  country 

105 


funeral  I  once  heard  the  undertaker  say  to  the  bear- 
erSj  "  s*ze  vourselves  off."  There  is  no  necessity  or 
artistic  8a*n  m  such  a  ceremony  in  a  library,  and  a 
departure  from  stiff  uniformity  is  quite  agreeable  i& 
Then  I  do  not  care  to  have  the  book  cases  all  of  the 
same  height,  nor  even  of  the  same  kind  of  wood,  nor 
to  have  them  all  "  dwarfs,"  with  bric-a-brac  on  the 
top.  I  would  rather  have  more  books  on  top  fit  In 
short,  it  is  pleasant  to  have  the  collection  remind 
one  in  a  way  of  Topsy — not  that  it  was  "born," 
but  "growed"  and  is  expected  to  grow  more  &3i 
There  is  a  modern  notion  of  considering  a  library 
as  a  room  rather  than  as  a  collection  of  books, 
and  of  making  the  front  drawing-room  the  library, 
•which  is  heretical  in  the  eyes  of  a  true  Book- Worm. 
This  is  probably  an  invention  of  the  women  of  the 
house  to  prevent  any  additions  to  the  books  without 
their  knowledge,  and  to  discourage  book-buying.  "We 
have  surrendered  too  much  to  our  wives  in  this; 
they  demand  book  cases  as  furniture  and  to  serve  as 
shelves,  without  any  regard  to  the  interior  contents 
or  whether  there  are  any,  except 
for  the  color  of  the  bindings  and 
the  regularity  of  the  rows.  All  of 
us  have  thus  seen  "libraries" 
without  books  worthy  the  name, 
and  book-cases  sometimes  with 
exquisite  silk  curtains,  carefully 
and  closely  drawn,  arousing  the 
suspicion  that  there  were  no 
106 


books  behind  them  $&  My  ideal   library  is   a  room 
given  up  to  books,  all  by  itself,  at  the  top  or  in 
the  rear  of  the  house,  where  "company" 
cannot  break  through  and  say  to  me,  "I 
know   you  are  a  great  man  to  buy 
books  —  have   you    seen   that 
beautiful  limited  holiday 
edition  of  Ben  Hur, 
with  illustra- 
tions ? ' 


107 


XVII. 
ENEMIES  OF  BOOKS. 

R.  BLADES  regards  as  "Enemies 
of  Books"  fire,  water,  gas,  heat,  dust 
and  neglect,  ignorance  and  bigotry, 
the  worm,  beetles,  bugs  and  rats, 
book-binders,  collectors,  servants 
and  children  £*  He  does  not  include 
women,  borrowers,  or  thieves.  Perhaps  he  considers 
them  rather  as  enemies  of  the  book-owners  jfr  The 
worm  is  not  always  to  be  considered  an  enemy  to 
authors,  although  he  may  be  to  books.  James  Payn, 
in  speaking  of  the  recent  discovery,  in  the  British 
Museum,  of  a  copy  on  papyrus  of  the  humorous 
poems  of  the  obscure  Greek  poet,  Herodles,  says : 
"  The  humorous  poems  of  Herodles  possess,  how- 
ever, the  immense  advantage  of  being  'seriously  muti- 
lated by  worms';  wherever  therefore  an  hiatus  occurs, 
the  charitable  and  cultured  mind  will  be  enabled  to 
conclude  that  (as  in  the  case  of  a  second  descent  up- 
on a  ball  supper)  the  '  best  things '  have  been  al- 
ready devoured."  It  was  doubtless  to  guard  against 
thieves  that  the  ancient  books  were  chained  up  in 
the  monasteries,  but  the  practice  was  effectual  also 
against  borrowers.  De  Bury,  in  his  "  Philobiblon  " 
has  a  chapter  entitled  "  A  Provident  Arrangement 
by  which  his  Books  may  be  lent  to  Strangers,"  in 
which  the  utmost  leniency  is  to  lend  duplicate  books 
upon  ample  security.  Not  to  adopt  the  harsh  judg- 
108 


ment  of  an  ancient  author,  who  says,  "  to  lend  a  book 
is  to  lose  it,  and  borrowing  but  a  hypocritical  prc- 
tense  for  stealing,"  we  may  conclude,  in  a  word, 
that  to  lend  a  book  is  like  the  Presidency  of  the 
United  States,  to  be  neither  desired  nor  refused.  Col- 
lectors are  not  so  much  exposed  to  the  ravages  of 
thieves  as  book-sellers  are,  and  a  book-thief  ought  to 
be  regarded  with  leniency  for  his  good  taste  and  his 
reliance  on  the  existence  of  culture  in  others.  After 
all,  it  is  one's  own  fault  if  he  lends  a  book  &  One 
should  as  soon  think  of  lending  one  of  his  children, 
unless  he  has  duplicate  or  triplicate  daughters.  It 
would  be  difficult  to  foretell  what  would  happen  to 
a  man  who  should  propose  to  borrow  a  rare  book. 
Perhaps  death  by  freezing  would  be  the  safest  pre- 
diction. Although  Grolier  stamped  "  et  amicorum  " 
on  his  books,  that  did  not  mean  that  he  would  lend 
them,  but  only  that  his  friends  were  free  of  them  at 
his  house.  It  is  amusing  to  note,  in  Mr.  Castle's 
monograph  on  Book-Plates,  how  many  of  them  indi- 
cate a  stern  purpose  not  to  lend  books.  Mr.  Gosse  re- 
gards book-plates  as  a  precaution  not  only  against 
thieves,  but  against  borrowers.  He  observes  of  the 
man  who  does  not  adopt  a  book-plate  :  "  Such  a  man 
is  liable  to  great  temptations.  He  is  brought  face  to 
face  with  that  enemy  of  his  species,  the  borrower, 
and  does  not  speak  with  him  in  the  gate.  If  he  had 
a  book-plate  he  would  say,  «  Oh !  certainly  I  will 
lend  you  this  volume,  if  it  has  not  my  book-plate  in 
it;  of  course  one  makes  it  a  rule  never  to  lend  a 

109 


book  that  has.'  He  would  say  this  and  feign  to  look 
inside  the  volume,  knowing  right  well  that  this  safe- 
guard  against  the  borrower  is  there  already."  One 
may  make  a  gift  of  a  book  to  a  friend,  but  there  is 
as  much  difference  between  giving  a  book  and  lend- 
ing one  as  there  is  between  indorsing  a  note  and 
giving  the  money.  I  have  considerable  respect  for  and 
sympathy  with  a  good  honest  book-thief.  He  holds 
out  no  false  hopes  and  makes  no  false  pretences.  But 
the  borrower  who  does  not  return  adds  hypocrisy 
and  false  pretences  to  other  crime.  He  ought  to  be 
committed  to  the  State  prison  for  life,  and  put  at 
keeping  the  books  of  the  institution.  In  a  buried  tem- 
ple in  Cnidos,  in  1857,  Mr.  Newton  found  rolls  of  lead 
hung  up,  on  which  were  inscribed  spells  devoting 
enemies  to  the  infernal  gods  for  sundry  specified  of- 
fenses, among  which  was  the  failure  to  return  a  bor- 
rowed garment  ^b  On  which  Agnes  Repplier  says  : 
"  Would  that  it  were  given  to  me  now  to  inscribe, 
and  by  inscribing  doom,  all  those  who  have  borrowed 
and  failed  to  return  our  books  ;  would  that  by  scrib- 
bling some  strong  language  on  a  piece  of  lead  we 
could  avenge  the  lamentable  gaps  on  our  shelves, 
and  send  the  ghosts  of  the  wrong-doers  howling 
dismally  into  the  eternal  shades  of  Tartarus." 

HAVE  spoken  of  a  certain  amount  of  sym- 
pathy as  due  from  a  magnanimous  book- 
owner  toward  a  pilferer  of  such  wares.  This 
is  always  on  the  condition  that  he  steals  to 
add  to  his  own  hoard  and  not  for  mere  pecuniary 
no 


gain.  The  following  is  suggested  as  a  Christian  mode 
of  dealing  with 

THE  BOOK-THIEF. 

|H,  gentle  thief! 

I  marked  the  absent-minded  air 
"With  which  you  tucked  away  my  rare 
Book  in  your  pocket. 

'Twas  past  belief — 
I  saw  you  near  the  open  case, 
But  yours  was  such  an  honest  face 

I  did  not  lock  it. 

I  knew  you  lacked 

That  one  to  make  your  set  complete, 
And  when  that  book  you  chanced  to  meet 

You  recognized  it. 

And  when  attacked 
By  rage  of  bibliophilic  greed, 
You  prigged  that  small  Quantin  Ovide, 

Although  I  prized  it. 

I  will  not  sue, 

Nor  bring  your  family  to  shame 
By  giving  up  your  honored  name 

To  heartless  prattle. 

I'll  visit  you, 

And  under  your  unwary  eyes 
Secrete  and  carry  off  the  prize, 

My  ravished  chattel. 

in 


gooft; 


T  GREATLY  rejoices  me  to  observe  that  Mr. 
Blades  does  not  include  tobacco  among  the 
enemies  of  books.  In  one  sense  tobacco  may  be 
ranked  as  a  book-enemy,  for  self-denial  in  this 
regard  may  furnish  a  man  with  a  good  library 
in  a  few  years.  I  have  known  a  very  pretty  col- 
lection made  out  of  the  ordinary  smoke-offerings  of 
twenty  years.  Undoubtedly  there  are  libraries  so  fine 
that  smoking  in  them  would  be  discountenanced, 
but  mine  is  not  impervious  to  the  pipe  or  cigar,  and 
I  entertain  the  pleasing  fancy  that  tobacco-smoke  is 
good  for  books,  disinfects  them,  and  keeps  them 
free  from  the  destroying  worm.  As  I  do  not  myself 
smoke,  I  like  to  see  my  friends  taking  their  ease  in 
my  book-room,  with  the  "  smoke  of  their  torment 
ascending"  above  my  modest  volumes.  I  know  how 
they  feel,  without  incurring  the  expense,  and  so  to 
them  I  indite  and  dedicate 

THE  SMOKE  TRAVELLER. 

I  puff  my  cigarette, 
Straight  I  see  a  Spanish  girl, 
Mantilla,  fan,  coquettish  curl, 
Languid  airs  and  dimpled  face, 
Calculating  fatal  grace ; 
Hear  a  twittering  serenade 
Under  lofty  balcony  played  ; 
Queen  at  bull-fight,  naught  she  cares 
"What  her  agile  lover  dares ; 
She  can  love  and  quick  forget. 

XI2 


Let  me  but  my  meerschaum  light, 
I  behold  a  bearded  man, 
Built  upon  capacious  plan, 
Sabre-slashed  in  war  or  duel, 
Gruff  of  aspect  but  not  cruel, 
Metaphysically  muddled, 
With  strong  beer  a  little  fuddled, 
Slow  in  love  and  deep  in  books, 
More  sentimental  than  he  looks, 

Swears  new  friendships  every  night. 

Let  me  my  chibouk  enkindle, — 
In  a  tent  I'm  quick  set  down 
With  a  Bedouin  lean  and  brown, 
Plotting  gain  of  merchandise, 
Or  perchance  of  robber  prize  ; 
Clumsy  camel  load  upheaving, 
"Woman  deftly  carpet  weaving  ; 
Meal  of  dates  and  bread  and  salt, 
While  in  azure  heavenly  vault 

Throbbing  stars  begin  to  dwindle. 

Glowing  coal  in  clay  dudheen 

Carries  me  to  sweet  Killarney, 
Full  of  hypocritic  blarney ; 
Huts  with  babies,  pigs  and  hens 
Mixed  together ;  bogs  and  fens  ; 
Shillalahs,  praties,  usquebaugh, 
Tenants  defying  hated  law, 
Fair  blue  eyes  with  lashes  black, 

"3 


Eyes  black  and  blue  from  cudgel-thwack,- 
^    a  So  fair,  so  foul,  is  Erin  green. 

03?orm  My  nargileh  once  inflamed, 

Quick  appears  a  Turk  with  turban, 
Girt  with  guards  in  palace  urban, 
Or  in  house  by  summer  sea 
Slave-girls  dancing  languidly ; 
Bow-string,  sack  and  bastinado, 
,      Black  boats  darting  in  the  shadow ; 
Let  things  happen  as  they  please, 
Whether  well  or  ill  at  ease, 
Fate  alone  is  blessed  or  blamed. 

With  my  ancient  calumet 

I  can  raise  a  wigwam's  smoke, 
And  the  copper  tribe  invoke, — 
Scalps  and  wampum,  bows  and  knives, 
Slender  maidens,  greasy  wives, 
Papoose  hanging  on  a  tree, 
Chieftains  squatting  silently, 
Feathers,  beads  and  hideous  paint, 
Medicine-man  and  wooden  saint, — 

Forest-framed  the  vision  set. 

My  cigar  breeds  many  forms — 
Planter  of  the  rich  Havana, 
Mopping  brow  with  sheer  bandanna  ; 
Russian  prince  in  fur  arrayed ; 
Paris  fop  on  dress  parade ; 
London  swell  just  after  dinner ; 
114 


Wall  Street  broker — gambling  sinner ; 
Delver  in  Nevada  mine  ; 
Scotch  laird  bawling  "  Auld  Lang  Syne  ;  " 
Thus  Raleigh's  weed  my  fancy  warms. 

Life's  review  in  smoke  goes  past. 
Fickle  fortune,  stubborn  fate, 
Right  discovered  all  too  late, 
Beings  loved  and  gone  before, 
Beings  loved  but  friends  no  more, 
Self-reproach  and  futile  sighs, 
Vanity  in  birth  that  dies, 
Longing,  heart-break,  adoration, — 
Nothing  sure  in  expectation 

Save  ash-receiver  at  the  last. 

N  THE  early  history  of  New  England,  when 
the  town  of  Deerfield  was  burned  by  the  In- 
dians, Captain  Dunstan,  who  was  the  father  of 
a  large  family,  deeming  discretion  the  better 
part  of  valor,  made  up  his  mind  to  run  for  it 
and  to  take  one  child  (as  a  sample,  probably), 
that  being  all  he  could  safely  carry  on  his  horse  $jt 
But  on  looking  about  him,  he  could  not  determine 
which  child  to  take,  and  so  observing  to  his  wife, 
"  All  or  none,"  he  set  her  and  the  baby  on  the  horse, 
and  brought  up  the  rear  on  foot  with  his  gun,  and 
fended  off  the  redskins  and  brought  the  whole  family 
into  safety.  Such  is  the  tale,  and  in  the  old  primer 
there  was  a  picture  of  the  scene — although  I  do  not 

"5 


understand  that  it  was  taken  from  the  life,  and  the 

story  reflects  small  credit  on  the  character  of  the 

aborigines  for  enterprise. 

HAVE  often  conjectured  which  of  my 
books  I  would  save  in  case  of  fire  in  my  li- 
brary, and  whether  I  should  care  to  rescue 
any  if  I  could  not  bring  off  all.  Perhaps  the 

problem  would  work  itself  out  as  follows : 

THE  FIRE  IN  THE   LIBRARY. 

jWAS  just  before  midnight  a  smart  conflagration 
Broke  out  in  my  dwelling  and  threatened  my 

books ; 

Confounded  and  dazed  with  a  great  consternation 
I  gazed  at  my  treasures  with  pitiful  looks. 

"Oh !  which  shall  I  rescue  ?  "  I  cried  in  deep  feeling ; 

I  wished  I  were  armed  like  Briareus  of  yore, 
While  sharper  and  sharper  the  flames  kept  revealing 

The  sight  of  my  bibliographical  store. 

"  My  Lamb  may  remain  to  be  thoroughly  roasted, 
My  Crabbe  to  be  broiled  and  my  Bacon  to  fry, 

My  Browning  accustomed  to  being  well  toasted, 
And  Waterman  Taylor  rejoicing  to  dry." 

At  hazard  I  grasped  at  the  rest  of  my  treasure, 
And  crammed  all  pockets  with  dainty  eighteens ; 

I  packed  up  a  pillow  case,  heaping  good  measure, 
And  turned  me  away  from  the  saddest  of  scenes. 

But  slowly  departing,  my  face  growing  sadder, 
At  leaving  old  favorites  behind  me  so  far, 
II* 


I 

A  feminine  voice  from  the  foot  of  the  ladder 
Cried,  "  Bring  down  my  Cook-Book  and  Harper's 
Bazar!" 


'T  HAS  been  hereinbefore  intimated  that 
women  may  be  classed  among  the  enemies 
of  books.  There  is  at  least  one  time  of  the 
year  when  every  Book- Worm  thinks  so, 
and  that  is  the  dread  period  of  house-cleaning — 
sometimes  in  the  spring,  sometimes  in  the  autumn, 
and  sometimes,  in  the  case  of  excessively  finical 
housewives,  in  both  $jb  That  is  the  time  looked  for- 
ward to  by  him  with  apprehension  and  looked  back 
upon  with  horror,  because  the  poor  fellow  knows 
what  comes  of 

CLEANING  THE  LIBRARY. 

|ITH  traitorous  kiss  remarked  my  spouse, 

Remain  down  town  to  lunch  to-day, 
For  we  are  busy  cleaning  house, 
And  you  would  be  in  Minnie's  way." 

When  I  came  home  that  fateful  night, 

I  found  within  my  sacred  room 
The  wretched  maid  had  wreaked  her  spite 

With  mop  and  pail  and  witch's  broom. 

The  books  were  there,  but  oh  how  changed ! 

They  startled  me  with  rare  surprises, 
For  they  had  all  been  rearranged, 

And  less  by  subjects  than  by  sizes. 

117 


Some  volumes  numbered  right  to  left, 
And  some  were  standing  on  their  heads, 

And  some  were  °f  their  mates  bereft, 
And  some  behind  for  refuge  fled. 

The  -women  brave  attempts  had  made 
At  placing  cognate  books  together; — 

They  looked  like  strangers  close  arrayed 
Under  a  porch  in  stormy  weather. 

She  watched  my  face — that  spouse  of  mine — 

Some  approbation  there  to  glean, 
But  seeing  I  did  not  incline 

To  praise,  remarked,  "  I've  got  it  clean." 

And  so  she  had — and  also  wrong ; 

She  little  knew — she  was  but  thirty — 
I  entertained  a  preference  strong 

To  have  it  right,  though  ne'er  so  dirty. 

That  wife  of  mine  has  much  good  sense, 
To  chide  her  would  have  been  inhuman, 

And  it  would  be  a  great  expense 
To  graft  the  book-sense  on  a  woman. 

IUCH  are  my  reflections  when  I  consider 
ta  fire  in  my  own  little  library.  But  when 
[I  regard  the  great  and  growing  mass  of 
(books  with  which  the  earth  groans,  and 
reflect  how  few  of  them  are  necessary  or  original, 
and  how  little  the  greater  part  of  them  would  be 
missed,  I  sometimes  am  led  to  believe  that  a  general 
conflagration  of  them  might  in  the  long  run  be  a 
III 


blessing  to  mankind,  by  the  stimulation  of  thought 
and  the  deliverance  of  authors  from  the  influence  of 
tradition  and  the  habit  of  imitation.  When  I  am  in 
this  mood  I  incline  to  think  that  much  is 

ODE   TO   OMAR. 

jMAR,  who  burned  (or  did  not  burn) 

The  Alexandrian  tomes, 

I  would  erect  to  thee  an  urn 

Beneath  Sophia's  domes. 

So  many  books  I  can't  endure — 

The  dull  and  commonplace, 
The  dirty,  trifling  and  obscure, 

The  realistic  race. 

Would  that  thy  exemplary  torch 

Could  bravely  blaze  again, 
And  many  manufactories  scorch 

Of  book-inditing  men. 

The  poets  who  write  "  dialect," 

Maudlin  and  coarse  by  turns, 
Most  ardently  do  I  expect 

Thou'lt  wither  up  with  Burns. 

All  the  erratic,  yawping  class 
Condemn  with  judgment  stern, 

Walt  Whitman's  awful  "Leaves  of  Grass  " 
With  elegant  Swinburne. 

Of  commentators  make  a  point, 
The  carping,  blind,  and  dry ; 

119 


Rend  the  "  Baconians  "  joint  by  joint, 
And  throw  them  on  to  fry. 

Especially  I'd  have  thee  choke 

Law  libraries  in  sheep 
With  fire  derived  from  ancient  Coke, 

And  sink  in  ashes  deep. 

Destroy  the  sheep — don't  save  my  own — 

I  weary  of  the  cram, 
The  misplaced  diligence  I've  shown — 

But  kindly  spare  my  Lamb. 

Fear  not  to  sprinkle  on  the  pyre 
The  woes  of  "  Esther  Waters  "  ; 

They'll  only  make  the  flame  soar  higher, 
And  warn  Eve's  other  daughters. 

But  'ware  of  Howells  and  of  James, 

Of  Trollope  and  his  rout ; 
They'd  dampen  down  the  fiercest  flames 

And  put  your  fire  out. 


1 20 


XVIII. 
LIBRARY  COMPANIONS. 

S  A  RULE  I  do  not  care  for  any 
constant  human  companion  in 
my  library,  but  I  do  not  object 
to  a  cat  or  a  small  dog  i^»  That 
picture  of  Montaigne,  drawn 
by  himself,  amusing  his  cat 
(with  a  garter,  or  that  other  one 
of  Doctor  Johnson  feeding  oys- 
ters to  his  cat  Hodge,  is  a  very 
pleasing  one.  In  my  library  hangs  Durer's  picture  of 
St.  Jerome  in  his  cell,  busy  with  his  writing,  and  a 
dog  and  a  lion  quietly  dozing  together  in  the  fore- 
ground. As  I  am  no  saint  I  have  never  been  able  to 
keep  a  lion  in  my  library  for  any  great  length  of  time, 
but  I  have  maintained  a  dog  there  8&  Lamb  even  con- 
tended that  his  books  were  the  better  for  being  dog's- 
eared,  but  I  do  not  go  so  far  as  that.  Nor  do  I  pretend 
that  his  presence  -will  prevent  the  books  from  be- 
coming foxed.  Here  is  a  portrait  of 

MY  DOG. 

|E  IS  a  trifling,  homely  beast, 
Of  no  use,  or  the  very  least; 
To  shake  imaginary  rat 
Or  bark  for  hours  at  china  cat ; 
To  lie  at  head  of  stairs  and  start, 
Like  animated,  woolly  dart, 
Upon  a  non-existent  foe  ; 

lax 


($006; 
Worm 


Or  on  hind  legs  like  monkey  go, 

To  beg  for  sugar  or  for  bone ; 

Never  content  to  be  alone  ; 

To  bask  for  hours  in  the  sun. 

Rolled  up  till  head  and  tail  are  one  ; 

Usurping  all  the  softest  places 

And  keeping  them  with  doggish  graces ; 

To  sneak  between  the  housemaid's  feet 

And  scour  unnoticed  on  the  street ; 

Wag  indefatigable  tail ; 

Cajole  with  piteous  human  wail ; 

To  dance  with  dainty  dandy  air 

When  nicely  parted  is  his  hair, 

And  look  most  ancient  and  dejected 

When  it  has  been  too  long  neglected ; 

To  sleep  upon  my  book-den  rug 

And  dream  of  battle  with  a  pug ; 

To  growl  with  counterfeited  rabies ; 

To  be  more  trouble  than  twin  babies  ; — 

These  are  the  qualities  and  tricks 

That  in  my  heart  his  image  fix ; 

And  so  in  cursory,  doggerel  rhyme 

I  celebrate  him  in  his  time, 

Nor  wait  his  virtues  to  rehearse 

In  cold  obituary  verse. 

HERE  is  one  other  speaking  companion 
that  I  would  tolerate  in  my  library,  and 
that  is  a  clock.  I  have  a  number  of  clocks 
in  mine,  and  if  it  were  not  for  their  unani- 


122 


mous  and  warning  voice  I  might  forget  to  go  to  bed. 
Perhaps  my  reader  would  like  to  hear  an  account  of 
.     MY  CLOCKS. 

|IVE  clocks  adorn  my  domicile 

And  give  me  occupation, 

For  moments  else  inane  I  fill 

With  their  due  regulation. 

Four  of  these  clocks,  on  each  Lord's  Day, 

As  regular  as  preaching, 
I  wind  and  set,  so  that  they  may 

The  flight  of  time  be  teaching. 

My  grandfather's  old  clock  is  chief, 
With  foolish  moon-faced  dial ; 

Procrastination  is  a  thief 
It  always  brings  to  trial. 

Its  height  is  as  the  tallest  men, 

Its  pendulum  beats  slow, 
And  when  its  awful  bell  booms  ten, 

Young  men  get  up  and  go. 

Another  clock  is  bronze  and  gilt, 

Penelope  sits  on  it, 
And  in  her  fingers  holds  a  quilt — 

How  strange  'tis  not  a  bonnet ! 

Memorial  of  those  weary  years 
When  she  the  web  unravelled, 

While  Ithacus  choked  down  his  fears 
And  slow  from  Ilium  travelled. 

123 


' 


Ceres  upon  the  third,  with  spray 
Q$cofb  Of  grain,  in  classic  gown, 

Seems  sadly  to  recall  the  day 
Proserpine  sank  down, 

With  scarcely  time  to  say  good-bye, 

Unto  the  world  of  Dis  ; 
And  keeps  account,  with  many  a  sigh, 

Of  harvest  time  in  this. 

Another  clock  is  rococo, 

Of  Louis  Sept  or  Seize, 
With  many  a  dreadful  furbelow 

An  artist's  hair  to  raise, 

Suggestions  of  a  giddy  court, 
With  fan  and  boufflant  bustle, 

When  silken  trains  made  gallant  sport 
And  o'er  the  floor  did  rustle. 

The  fourth  was  brought,  in  foolish  trust, 
From  Alpland  far  away, 

A  baby  clock,  and  so  it  must 
Be  tended  every  day. 

Importunate  and  trivial  thing  I 

Thou  katydid  of  clocks  ! 
Defying  all  my  skill  to  bring 

Right  time  from  out  thy  box. 

With  works  of  wood  and  face  of  brass 
On  which  queer  cherubs  play, 

The  tedious  hours  thou  well  dost  pass, 

And  none  thy  chirp  gainsay. 
124 


MONG  the  silent  companions  in  my 

study  are  the  effigies  of  the  four 
reatest  geniuses  of  modern  times 

in  the  realms  of  literature,  art,  music 
nd  war  —  a  print  of  Shakespeare; 

one  of  Michael  Angelo's  corrugated 
face  with  its  broken  nose ;  a  bust  of  Beethoven,  re- 
sembling a  pouting  lion  ;  and  a  print  of  Napoleon  at 
St.  Helena,  representing  him  dressed  in  a  white  duck 
suit,  with  a  broad-brimmed  straw  hat,  and  sitting 
looking  seaward,  with  those  unfathomable  eyes,  a 
newspaper  lying  in  his  lap  tfjb  Unhappy  faces  all  ex- 
cept the  first — his  cheerful,  probably  because  he  has 
effected  an  arrangement  with  an  otherwise  idle  per- 
son, named  Bacon,  to  do  all  his  work  for  him.  But 
there  is  another  portrait,  at  which  I  look  oftener,  the 
original  of  which  probably  takes  more  interest  in 
me,  but  is  unknown  to  every  visitor  to  my  study.  I 
myself  have  not  seen  her  in  half  a  century  dfb  I  call  it 
simply 

A  PORTRAIT. 

GENTLE  face  is  ever  in  my  room, 

With  features  fine  and  melancholy  eyes, 
Though  young,  a  little  past  life's  freshest  bloom, 
And  always  with  air  of  sad  surmise. 

A  great  white  cap  almost  conceals  her  hair, 
A  collar  broad  falls  o'er  her  shoulders  slender ; 

The  fashion  of  a  bygone  age  an  air 
Of  quaintness  to  her  simple  garb  doth  render. 

125 


(goofc 


Those  hazel  eyes  pursue  me  as  I  move 

And  seem  to  watch  my  busy  toiling  pen ; 
&**"'         They  hold  me  with  an  anxious  yearning  love, 
As  if  she  dwelt  upon  the  earth  again. 

My  mother's  portrait !  fifty  years  ago, 
When  I  was  but  a  heedless  happy  boy, 

The  influence  of  her  being  ceased  to  flow, 
And  she  laid  down  life's  burden  and  its  joy. 

And  now  as  I  sit  pondering  o'er  my  books, 
So  vainly  seeking  a  receding  rest, 

I  read  the  wonder  in  her  steadfast  looks : 

"  Is  this  my  son  who  lay  upon  my  breast  ?  " 

And  when  for  me  there  is  an  end  of  time, 
And  this  unsatisfying  work  is  done, 

If  I  shall  meet  thee  in  thy  peaceful  clime, 

Young  mother,  wilt  thou  know  thy  gray-haired 
son  ? 

HERE  is  one  other  work  of  art  which 
I  adorns  my  library — a  medallion  by  a  dear 

friend  of  mine,  an  eminent  sculptor,  the 
I  story  of  which  I  will  put  into  his  mouth. 
He  calls  the  face 

MY  SCHOOLMATE. 

|HE  snows  have  settled  on  my  head 

But  not  upon  my  heart, 
And  incidents  of  years  long  fled 
From  out  my  memory  start. 
My  hand  is  cunning  to  contrive 
126 


The  shapes  my  brain  invents, 
And  keep  in  marble  forms  alive 

That  which  my  soul  contents  ;  Worm 

And  I  have  wife,  and  children  tall, 

Grandchildren  cluster  near, 
And  sweet  the  applause  of  men  doth  fall 

On  my  undeafened  ear. 
But  still  my  mind  will  backward  turn 

For  half  a  century, 
And  without  reasoning  will  yearn 

For  sight  or  news  of  thee, 
Thou  playmate  of  my  boyhood  days, 

When  life  was  all  aglow, 
When  the  sweetest  thing  was  thy  girlish  praise, 

As  I  drew  thee  o'er  the  snow 
To  the  old  red  school-house  by  the  road, 

Where  we  learned  to  spell  and  read, 
When  thou  wert  all  my  fairy  load 

And  I  was  thy  prancing  steed. 

Oh !  thou  wert  simple  then  and  fair. 

Artless  and  unconstrained, 
With  quaintly  knotted  auburn  hair 

From  which  the  wind  refrained, 
And  from  thine  earnest  steady  eyes 

Shone  out  a  nature  pure, 
Formed  by  kind  Heaven,  a  man's  best  prize, 

To  love  and  to  endure. 

Oh !  art  thou  still  in  life  and  time, 
Or  hast  thou  gone  before  ? 

127 


' 
I 


I 

• 


And  hath  thy  lot  been  like  to  mine, 

Or  pinched  and  bare  and  sore  ? 
^nc*  didst  thou  marry,  or  art  thou 

Still  of  the  spinster  tribe  ? 
Perchance  thou  art  a  widow  now, 

Steeled  against  second  bribe  ? 
Do  grandsons  round  thy  hearthstone  play, 

Or  dost  thou  end  thy  race  ? 
And  could  that  auburn  hair  grow  gray, 

And  wrinkles  line  thy  face  ? 
I  cannot  make  thee  old  and  plain — 

I  would  not  if  I  could — 
And  I  recall  thee  without  stain, 

Simply  and  sweetly  good  ; 
And  I  have  carved  thy  pretty  head 

And  hung  it  on  my  wall, 
And  to  all  men  let  it  be  said, 

I  like  it  best  of  all ; 
For  on  a  far-off  snowy  road, 

Before  I  had  learned  to  read, 
Thou  wert  all  my  fairy  load 

And  I  was  thy  prancing  steed ! 


HAVE  reserved  my  queerest  library  compan- 
ion till  the  last.  It  is  not  a  book,  although  it  is 


good  for  nothing  but  to  read.  It  is  not  an  auto- 
graph, although  it  is  simply  the  name  of  an  in- 


I 

;^\j  dividual  i&  It  is  my  office  sign  which  I  have 
cherished,  as  a  memento  of  busier  days.  Some 
singular  reflections  are  roused  when  I  gaze  at 
128 


MY  SHINGLE. 
|Y  SHINGLE  is  battered  and  old,  (£ooft; 

No  longer  deciphered  with  ease, 
So  I've  taken  it  in  from  the  cold, 
And  fastened  it  up  on  a  frieze. 

A  long  generation  ago, 

With  feelings  of  singular  pride 
I  regarded  its  glittering  show, 

And  pointed  it  out  to  my  bride. 

Companions  of  youth  have  grown  few, 

Its  loves  and  aversions  are  faint ; 
No  spirit  to  make  friends  anew — 

An  old  enemy  seems  like  a  saint. 

My  clients  have  paid  the  last  fee 

For  passage  in  Charon's  sad  boat, 
Imposing  no  duty  on  me 

Save  to  utter  this  querelous  note  ; 

And  still  as  I  toil  in  life's  mills, 

In  loneliness  growing  profound, 
To  attend  on  the  proof  of  their  wills 

And  swear  that  their  wits  were  quite  sound ! 

So  I  work  with  the  scissors  and  pen, 

And  to  show  of  old  courage  a  spark, 
I  must  utter  a  jest  now  and  then, 

Like  whistling  of  boys  in  the  dark. 

I  tack  my  old  friend  on  the  wall, 
So  that  infantile  grandson  of  mine 

129 


ttt 


May  not  think,  if  my  life  he  recall, 
That  I  died  without  making  a  sign. 

When  at  court  on  the  great  judgment  day 
With  penitent  suitors  I  mingle, 

May  my  guilt  be  washed  cleanly  away, 
Like  that  on  my  faded  old  shingle ! 

COURSE  my  chief  occupation  in 
ny  library  is  reading  and  writing.  To 
)e  sure,  I  do  a  good  deal  of  thinking 
here.  But  there  is  another  occupa- 
ion  which  I  practice  to  a  great  ex- 
ent,  which  does  not  involve  reading 
or  writing  at  all,  nor  thinking  to  any  considerable  de- 
gree. That  is  playing  solitaire.  I  play  only  one  kind 
of  this  and  that  I  have  played  for  many  years  &k  It 
requires  two  packs  of  cards,  and  requires  building  on 
the  aces  and  kings,  and  so  I  have  them  tacked  down 
on  a  lap-board  to  save  picking  out  and  laying  down 
every  time  £<«  This  particular  game  is  called  "  St. 
Elba,"  probably  because  Napoleon  did  not  play  it, 
and  it  can  be  "  won  "  once  in  about  sixty  trials.  I  do 
not  care  for  card-playing  with  others,  but  I  have 
certain  reasons  for  liking 

SOLITAIRE. 

LIKE  to  play  cards  with  a  man  of  sense, 
And  allow  him  to  play  with  me, 
And  so  it  has  grown  a  delight  intense 

To  play  solitaire  on  my  knee. 
130 


I  love  the  quaint  form  of  the  sceptered  king, 

The  simplicity  of  the  ace, 
The  stolid  knave  like  a  wooden  thing, 

And  her  majesty's  smirking  face. 

Diamonds,  aces,  and  clubs  and  spades — 

Their  garb  of  respectable  black 
A  moiety  brilliant  of  red  invades, 

As  they  mingle  in  motley  pack. 

Independent  of  anyone's  signal  or  leave, 
Relieved  from  the  bluffing  of  poker, 

I've  no  apprehension  of  ace  up  a  sleeve, 
And  fear  no  superfluous  joker. 

I  build  up  and  down ;  all  the  cards  I  hold, 

And  the  game  is  always  fair, 
For  I  am  honest,  and  so  is  my  old 

Companion  at  solitaire. 

Let  kings  condescend  to  the  lower  grades, 
Queens  glitter  with  diamonds  rare, 

Knaves  flourish  their  clubs,  and  peasants  wield 

spades, 
But  give  me  my  solitaire. 


"  "    " 
'  -  X  '.  fc " 

* 


.. 

* 

XIX. 
THE  FRIENDSHIP  OF  BOOKS. 

|O  MANY  peaceful  men  of  the  legal 
robe  the  companionship  of  books  is 
inexpressibly  dear.  What  a  privilege 
it  is  to  summon  the  greatest  and  most 
:harming  spirits  of  the  past  from  their 
graves,  and  find  them  always  willing 
to  talk  to  us  !  How  delightful  to  go  to  our  well-known 
book-shelves*  lay  hands  on  our  favorite  authors — 
even  in  the  dark,  so  well  do  we  know  them — take 
any  volume,  open  it  at  any  page,  and  in  a  few  min- 
utes lose  all  sense  and  remembrance  of  the  real 
world,  with  its  strife,  its  bitterness,  its  disappoint- 
ments, its  hollo  wness,  its  unfaithfulness,  its  selfish- 
ness, in  the  pictures  of  an  ideal  world !  ft  The  real 
world,  do  we  say  ?  Which  is  the  real  world,  that  of 
history  or  that  of  fiction  ?  In  this  age  of  historic 
doubt  and  iconoclasm,  are  not  the  heroes  of  our 
favorite  romances  much  more  real  than  those  of  his- 
tory? Captain  Ed'ard  Cuttle,  mariner,  is  much  more 
real  to  us  than  Captain  Joseph  Cook ;  Cooper's  Two 
Admirals  than  the  great  Nels.an ;  Leather- Stocking 
than  the  yellow-haired  Cu&ter;  Henry  Esmond  than 
any  of  the  Pretenders;  Hester  Prynne  and  Becky 
Sharp  than  Catherine  of  Russia  or  Aspasia  or  Lu- 
crezia ;  Sidney  Carton  than  Philip  Sidney.  Even  the 
kings  and  heroes  who  have  lived  in  history  live  more 
vividly  for  us  in  romance.  We  know  the  crooked 


• 


Richard  and  the  crafty  Louis  XI.  most  familiarly,  if 
not  most  accurately,  through  Shakespeare  and  Scott ; 
and  where  in  history  do  we  get  so  haunting  a  picture  <£9orm 
of  the  great  Napoleon  and  Waterloo  as  in  Victor 
Hugo's  wondrous  but  inaccurate  chapter  ?  Happy  is 
the  man  who  has  for  his  associates  David,  Solomon, 
Job,  Paul,  and  John,  in  spite  of  the  assaults  of  mod- 
ern criticism  upon  the  Scriptures  !  No  one  can  shake 
our  faith  in  Don  Quixote,  although  the  accounts 
of  the  Knight  "  without  fear  and  without  reproach  " 
are  so  short  and  vague.  There  is  no  doubt  about  the 
travels  of  Christian,  although  those  of  Stanley  may 
be  questioned.  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield  is  a  much 
more  actual  personage  than  Peter  who  preached  the 
Crusades.  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  and  his  squire  life 
are  much  more  probable  to  us  than  Sir  William 
Temple  in  his  gardens  1^1  There  is  no  character  in 
romance  who  has  not  or  might  not  have  lived,  but 
we  are  thrown  into  grave  doubts  of  the  saintly  Wash- 
ington and  the  devilish  Napoleon  depicted  three 
quarters  of  a  century  ago.  "We  cast  history  aside  in 
scepticism  and  disgust ;  we  cling  to  romance  with 
faith  and  delight  dfi  "  The  things  that  are  seen  are 
temporal"}  the  things  that  are  not  seen  are  eternal." 
So  let  the  writer  hereof  sing  a  song  in  praise  of 

.^       MY  FRIENDS  THE  BOOKS. 

[RIENDS  of  my  youth  and  of  my  age 

Within  my  chamber  wait, 
Until  I  fondly  turn  the  page 
And  prove  them  wise  and  great. 

133 


At  me  they  do  not  rudely  glare 
With  eye  that  luster  lacks, 

But  knowing  how  I  hate  a  stare, 
Politely  turn  their  backs. 

They  never  split  my  head  with  din, 
Nor  snuffle  through  their  noses, 

Nor  admiration  seek  to  win 
By  inartistic  poses. 

If  I  should  chance  to  fall  asleep, 
They  do  not  scowl  or  snap, 

But  prudently  their  counsel  keep 
Till  I  have  had  my  nap. 

And  if  I  choose  to  rout  them  out 

Unseasonably  at  night, 
They  do  not  chafe  nor  curse  nor  pout, 

But  rise  all  clothed  and  bright. 

They  ne'er  intrude  with  silly  say, 
They  never  scold  nor  worry ; 

They  ne'er  suspect  and  ne'er  betray, 
They're  never  in  a  hurry. 

Anacreon  never  gets  quite  full, 
Nor  Horace  too  flirtatious  ; 

Swift  makes  due  fun  of  Johnny  Bull, 
And  Addison  is  gracious. 

Saint-Simon  and  Grammont  rehearse 

Their  tales  of  court  with  glee  ; 
134 


For  all  their  scandal  I'm  no  worse, — 
They  never  peach  on  me. 

For  what  I  owe  Montaigne,  no  dread  Worm 

To  meet  him  on  the  morrow ; 
And  better  still,  it  must  be  said, 

He  never  wants  to  borrow. 

Paul  never  asks,  though  sure  to  preach, 

'Why  I  don't  come  to  church  ; 
Though  Dr.  Johnson  strives  to  teach, 

I  do  not  fear  his  birch. 

My  Dickens  never  is  away 

Whene'er  I  choose  to  call ; 
I  need  not  wait  for  Thackeray 

In  chill  palatial  hall. 

I  help  to  bring  Amelia  to, 

Who  always  is  a-fainting; 
I  love  the  Oxford  graduate  who 

Explains  great  Turner's  painting. 

My  memory  is  full  of  graves 

Of  friends  in  days  gone  by ; 
But  Time  these  sweet  companions  saves, — 

These  friends  who  never  die  ! 


135 


;» 


• 


SO  HERE  ENDETH  "  IN  THE  TRACK  OF  THE 
BOOK-WORM."  $  PRINTED  BY  ME,  ELBERT 
HUBBARD,  AT  THE  ROYCROFT  SHOP  tfi  IN 
EAST  AURORA,  N.  Y.,  U.  S.  A.,  AND  COM- 
PLETED THIS  TWENTY-SIXTH  DAY  OF  <& 
JUNE,  MDCCCXCVII. 


V 

I 


